DEBATERS'  HANDBOOK  SERIES 


UNEMPLOYMENT 


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Debaters9   Handbook    Series 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 


ON 


UNEMPLOYMENT 


COMPILED  BY 
JULIA  E.JOHNSEN 


THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 
WHITE  PLAINS,  N.  Y..  AND  NEW  YORK  CITY 

1915 


Published  December.  1915 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 


The  subject  of  Unemployment  has  taken  the  form  of  two 
leading  aspects  among  debaters — the  establishment  of  public 
labor  exchanges,  and  the  supplying  of  municipal,  state  or 
national  work  when  normal  channels  are  inadequate  to  absorb 
surplus  labor.  The  present  volume  is  designed  in  particular  to 
serve  both  of  these  questions,  its  emphasis  being  given  to  reme- 
dial schemes  and  their  negation,  while  at  the  same  time  a  full 
bibliography  has  been  provided  and  an  endeavor  has  been  made 
also  to  include  articles  covering  the  general  subject  broadly,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  outside  reader  and  student.  The  brief  and 
selection  of  articles  first  arranged  in  affirmative  and  negative 
sequence  are  designed  for  the  labor  exchanges  question.  Fol- 
lowing them  is  a  selection  of  articles  more  directly  on  public 
work,  in  affirmative  and  negative  sequence.  The  general  refer- 
ences serve  as  an  introduction  and  to  other  schemes.  The 
bibliography  on  the  works  question,  for  condensation,  includes 
all  forms  of  public  provision  of  work,  compulsory  and  voluntary, 
from  wood  yards  to  farm  colonies,  and  from  municipal  to 
national  undertakings.  In  the  labor  exchanges  division  of  the 
bibliography  (AW)  and  (N  W)  indicate  additional  articles  on 
the  affirmative  and  negative  of  the  works  remedy. 

The  statement  of  the  works  question  is:  Resolved,  That  in 
times  of  depression  public  work  should  be  supplied  to  the  unem- 
ployed. General  arguments  in  favor  of  work  are :  they  preserve 
self-respect,  independence  and  efficiency,  are  a  test  of  trust- 
worthiness, prevent  family  disintegration  and  suffering,  encour- 
age return  to  employment,  are  cheaper  than  chanty.  Against  the 
works  question  are  the  contentions :  they  are  not  good  business, 
they  undermine  self-help,  they  are  often  accompanied  by  offen- 
sive cross-examination,  they  are  inappropriate  for  persons 
trained  in  other  lines,  are  costly,  they  aggravate  rather  than 
diminish  Unemployment,  they  interfere  with  the  free  play  of 
industry,  they  weaken  resources  of  the  community,  they  reduce 
incentives  of  effort,  they  do  not  help  the  classes  they  are 
designed  to  help,  they  legalize  the  right  to  work. 


CONTENTS 

BRIEF 

Affirmative   ix 

Negative   xiv 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bibliographies    xix 

General  References xix 

Affirmative  References   xxxi 

Negative  References  xxxvi 

References  on  Work,  Affirmative    xxxvi 

References  on  Work,  Negative xxxix 

INTRODUCTION I 

GENERAL  DISCUSSION 

Kingsbury,  John  A.  Our  Army  of  the  Unemployed 

Review  of  Reviews  5 

Tarbell,  Ida  M.  Golden  Rule  in  Business ., 

American  Magazine  16 

Stern,  Leon.  Drifters :  Unemployment  Problem  of  the 
Southwest  Survey  26 

Chicago  Plan  for  Meeting  Unemployment  and  Destitution 
Survey  35 

Sellers,  Edith.  How  Switzerland  Deals  with  Her  Unem- 
ployed    Nineteenth  Century  38 

Coman,  Katharine.  Great  Britain's  Experiment  in  Compul- 
sory Unemployment  Insurance Survey  54 

Gardens  and  the  Unemployed Craftsman    67 

Number  of  Unemployed 

Chicago  Municipal  Markets  Commission  Report  70 

Operation  of  Public  Employment  Exchanges  in  the  United 
States American  Labor  Legislation  Review  79 

AFFIRMATIVE  DISCUSSION 

Andrews,  John  B.  National  System  of  Labor  Exchanges 
New  Republic  81 


viii  CONTENTS 

Murdock,  Victor.  For  a  Bureau  of  Employment 

Congressional  Record  97 

Leiserson,  William  M.  Theory  of  Public  Employment 
Offices  and  the  Principles  of  Their  Practical  Administra- 
tion   Political  Science  Quarterly  I IO 

Leiserson,  William  M.    Looking  for  a  Job. .  .Catholic  World  126 

Black,  John  D.  Jobless  Man  and  the  Manless  Job 

La  Follette's  133 

Kellor,  Frances  A.  Is  Unemployment  a  Municipal  Problem? 
National  Municipal  Review  136 

Webb,  Sidney.  Problem  of  Unemployment  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  with  a  Remedy  by  Organization  and  Training 
Annals  of  the  American  Academy  142 

NEGATIVE  DISCUSSION 

Devine,  Edward  T.  Employment  Bureau  for  the  People  of 
New  York  City Annals  of  the  American  Academy  161 

Wilson,  William  B.    Uncle  Sam:  Employment  Agent 

Outlook  174 

Stone,  H.  W.  J.    Labor  Exchanges  in  England 

Fortnightly  Review  182 

•    Hutchinson,  James  G.    Workman's  View  of  the  Remedy  for 

Unemployment   Nineteenth  Century  193 

Mitchell,  Isaac  H.  Organised  Labour  and  the  Unemploy- 
ment Problem Nineteenth  Century  195 

WORK  AFFIRMATIVE 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  on  "The  Cause  and  Remedy  for  Unem- 
ployment"   Scientific  American  207 

Flower,  B.  O.    Problem  for  True  Statesmanship Arena  209 

Stone,  N.  I.  National  Employment  Reserve  for  Lean  Years 
and  Seasons Survey  214 

WORK  NEGATIVE 

Right  to  Work Living  Age  219 

Real  Problem  of  the  Unemployed Nation  232 

Davison,  R.  C.  Employment  and  Unemployment:  the  Latest 
Phase. .  Westminster  Review  234 


BRIEF 


Resolved,  That  a  national  system  of  public  labor  exchanges 
should  be  established. 

I.    The  points  at  issue  are : 

A.  Is  the  establishment  of  a  remedy  of  the  nature   of 

national  public  labor  exchanges  important? 

B.  Is  such  a  remedy  desirable? 

C.  Is  it  advisable  that  a  national  system  be  instituted? 

D.  Cannot  other  remedies  be  made  to  meet  conditions 

adequately. 

AFFIRMATIVE 

I.    Public  labor  exchanges  are  important,  for 

A.  The  early  return  of  as  many  of  the  unemployed  as 
possible  to  the  ranks  of  normal  industry  is  of 
primary  importance  to  a  wise  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  Unemployment,  for 

1.  Anything  else  can  as  a  rule  only  mean  the  burden- 

ing of  the  community  or  individuals  with  addi- 
tional charitable  relief  or  support. 

2.  Unless  work  is  found  at  an  early  stage  there  is 

danger  that  the  unemployed  may  become  unem- 
ployable, for 

a.  A  natural  loss  of  physical  efficiency  may  result. 

b.  Moral  deterioration  or  pauperization  may  re- 

sult. 

c.  The  tramp  habit  may  be  contracted. 

3.  Incontinuous  work  is  often  productive  of  distress 

and  unsettlement,  for 

a.  The  individual  is  harassed  by  uncertainty, 
financial  embarrassments,  loss  of  social  posi- 
tion, etc. 


BRIEF 

b.    The  community  is  affected  by  reason  of  re- 
trenchments, stagnation  of  trade,  etc. 

B.    A  remedy  is  needed  against  existing  private  agencies, 

for 
i.    Many  abuses  have  grown  up  around  them,  for 

a.  They  misrepresent  or  withhold  facts  in  relation 

to  work,  either  as  to  character,  permanency, 
or  remuneration. 

b.  They   overcharge,   or   discriminate   in   size   of 

fees. 

c.  They    retain    fees    without   having   given    the 

service  required. 

d.  They  are  sometimes  in  collusion  with  employ- 

ers or  contractors,  leading  to  frequent  dis- 
charge of  men  for  the  sake  of  new  fees. 

e.  They  send  men  to  distant  localities  where  there 

are   no   jobs    or   send   more   men   than   are 

required. 

/.    They  exploit  immigrants. 
g.    They  are  a  moral  danger  to  girls. 

2.  They  are  inadequate,  for 

a.  There  is  no  cooperation  between  them. 

b.  The  patronizing  of  a  number  of  agencies   is 

sometimes  required  before  work  is  found,  a 
fee  being  exacted  -at  each,  for 
(i)     Their  lists  of  situations  are  limited. 

c.  They  are  often  indifferent  to  the  interests  of 

those  who  patronize  them,  for 

(1)  They  have   insufficient   means   of   estab- 

lishing  character   or   fitness    of    either 
applicant  or  employer. 

(2)  Their  chief  interest  is  the  amount  of  fees 

earned. 

3.  Their  regulation  is  proved  practically  futile,  for 

a.  Twenty- four  states  and  the  District  of  Colum- 

bia    have     attempted     to     regulate     private 
agencies  and  have  made  a  failure. 

b.  On  November  3,   1914,  private  agencies  were 

discontinued  in  the  state  of  Washington  by 
law. 


BRIEF  xi 

<    ,    Other  distributing  agencies  of  labor  are  inadequate  or 
undesirable,  for 

1.  Free  municipal  and  state  bureaus  have,  with  few 

exceptions,  been  characterized  as  inefficient,  un- 
businesslike, unable  to  compete  with  private 
agencies,  having  valueless  statistics,  constantly 
on  the  defensive. 

2.  Philanthropic  bureaus  are  usually  under  the  stigma 

of  charity,  hence  not  much  patronized  by  the 
average  self-respecting  man. 

3.  Newspaper   ads   are   wasteful   to   the   seeker    for 

work,  for 

a.  The  number  of  applicants  for  each  position  is 

largely  in  excess  of  places  advertised. 

b.  Repeated  advertising  is  required  by  the  appli- 

cant. 

c.  They  are  misleading. 

4.  Trade  unions  are  of  aid  only  to  union  workmen 

of  particular  trades. 

5.  Employers'  association  agencies  have   always  the 

menace  and  danger  of  a  blacklist. 

D.  An  adequate  flow  of  labor  to  occupations  and  locali- 

ties where  there  is  a  special  shortage  is  needed,  for 
i.    There  is   frequent  complaint  of  the  difficulty  of 
getting  adequate  farm  labor  in  agricultural  dis- 
tricts. 

E.  There  are  large  numbers  of  unemployed  wage-earners 

seeking  new  work. 

1.  Those  who  have  become  unemployed  through  the 

closing  of  seasonal  occupations. 

2.  Those  depending  on  casual  work. 

3.  Immigrants,  etc. 

II.    The  proposed  remedy  is  desirable,  for 

A.    The  organization  of   our  labor  market   will   have   a 
beneficial  effect  upon  industrial  conditions,  for 

1.  It  will  tend  to   regulate   supply  and  demand  of 

labor. 

2.  It  will  aid  in  making  employment  less  casual. 


xii  BRIEF 

3.  It  will  abolish  employment  purely  local  in  char- 

acter. 

4.  It  will  effectively  regulate,  if  not  eliminate,  private 

agencies  through  competition. 

B.  It  will  benefit  the  industrial  classes,  for 

1.  It  will  open  to  the  workman  all  the  opportunities 

for  work  available  not  only  in  his  own  town  but 
throughout  the  country. 

2.  It  usually  arranges   for  the  transfer  of   men  to 

jobs. 

3.  It  will  remove  from  the  employee  the  injustice  of 

being  compelled  to  pay,  though  least  able,  for  a 
service  that  benefits  all  classes  in  the  com- 
munity. 

4.  It  will  remove  the  physical  strain  consequent  upon 

the  present  wasteful  methods  of  seeking  em- 
ployment. 

5.  It  will  minimize  misfits  in  industry. 

6.  It  will  maintain  self-dependence. 

7.  It  will  assist  in  dovetailing  casual  work. 

C.  It  will  be  beneficial  sociologically,  for 

1.  It  will  be  the  best  nucleus  for  collecting  accurate 

labor  market  statistics,  and  the  diffusion  of  in- 
formation relative  to  the  causes,  conditions  and 
further  relief  of  industrial  conditions. 

2.  It  is  necessary  as  a  test  of  unemployment. 

3.  It  is  desirable  for  drastic  treatment  of  vagrancy, 

for 

a.  In  connection  with  the  telegraph,  telephone, 
railway  and  postoffice  it  will  relieve  vagrants 
from  the  necessity  of  going  on  a  tramp. 

4.  It  will  indicate  the  advisability  of  municipal  work 

and  other  public  aid. 

5.  It  would  be  a  necessary  adjunct  to  a  system  of 

unemployment  insurance. 

6.  As  a  source  of  information  it  will  facilitate  voca- 

tional guidance  and  training  of  the  young. 

7.  It   will   help    eliminate   the   padrone    system    and 

regulate  saloons.     (Nat.  Munic.  R.,  Ja.  '15.) 


BRIEF  xiii 

8.  It  will  aid  in  distributing  the  immigrant. 

9.  It  will  cause  diminution  of  charges  on  state  and 

community  from  pauperism,  etc. 

D.    The  practicability  and  satisfaction  derived  from  public 
exchanges  have  been  established  elsewhere,  for 

1.  In  Germany  the  municipal  bureaus  organized  on 

a  national  scale  have  grown  to  be  considered  an 
indispensable  institution. 

2.  In  England  a  national  system  is  operating,  on  the 

whole,  successfully. 

3.  The  Wisconsin  state  system  is  patronized  widely 

by  employers. 

4.  In  France,  Switzerland  and  other  countries  gov- 

ernment subsidies  are  offered  to  local  exchanges. 

III.    It  is  desirable  that  a  national  system  should  be  instituted, 
for 

A.  It  is  a  proper  function  of  the  government  to  regulate 

the  supply  and  demand  of  labor,  for 

1.  It  has  to  do  with  the  economic  welfare  of  the 

country,  for 

a.  Industrial  depressions  are  intensified  whenever 
large  numbers  are  out  of  work. 

2.  It  affects  the  sociological  welfare  of  the  country, 

for 

o.  Enforced  idleness  causes  wasteful  deteriora- 
tion and  loss  of  useful  units  of  our  popula- 
tion. 

3.  The  service  sought  is  a  public  utility  not  less  than 

the  postal  service,  weather  report  service,  fed- 
eral food  inspections,  etc. 

4.  It  is  an  interstate  problem. 

B.  Its  scope  should  be  larger  than  the  municipality  or 

state  alone,  for 

1.  Above  half  our  states  are  so  far  unrepresented  by 

public  bureaus. 

2.  There  is  practically  no  exchange  of  information 

between  states  where  public  bureaus  now  exist. 

3.  The  resources  at  the  disposal  of  the  federal  gov- 


xiv  BRIEF 

ernment  provide  better  facilities  for  it  than  the 
resources  of  the  states. 

C.    It  would  be  expedient,  for 

I.    It  would  be  in  no  danger  of  political  control,  for 

a.  It  could  be  established  under  the  civil  service 

system. 

b.  It  could  be  initiated  simply  by  an  extension 

of  federal  functions  over  the  state  and  muni- 
cipal bureaus  at  present  existing. 

IV.    Other  remedies  cannot  be  made  adequately  to  meet  con- 
ditions, for 

A.  None  have  so  far  been  found  applicable  to  all  classes 

of  the  unemployed,  for 

1.  Many,  through  pride,  hold  aloof  from  relief  meas- 

ures. 

2.  Insurance  benefits  only  those  who  qualify  for  it, 

and  is  limited  in  duration. 

3.  Most  are  limited  to  particular  territories. 

B.  They  do  not  meet  the  workman's  needs  as  an  indi- 

vidual, for 

1.  They  do  not  adapt  themselves  to  workmen's  vary- 

ing capacities. 

2.  They  do  not  relieve  them  from  uncertainty. 

C.  Those  involving  regularization  of  industry  and  similar 

schemes  require  revolutionized  conditions. 

D.  Those  left  to  individuals  and  individual  organizations 

depend  on  the  sporadic  altruism  of  others. 


NEGATIVE 

I.    The  establishment  of  public  labor  exchanges  is  not  impor- 
tant, for 

A.    The  nature  of  the  problem  has  been  misunderstood, 
for 

i.    The  number  of  the  needy  unemployed  is  not  as 

large  as  is  indicated,  for 
a.    Statistics   indiscriminately   include    the   unem- 


BRIEF  xv 

ployable,  the  sick,  shirkers,  defective,  un- 
skilled, unsteady,  etc.,  and  immigrants  whom 
history  has  shown  to  have  almost  certain 
chances. 

b.  The  people  laid  off  are  generally  those  who  are 

the  most  able  to  be  idle,  the  unmarried,  girls 
who  live  at  home,  etc. 

c.  Unemployment  caused  by  abnormal  conditions 
./  such  as  war,  panic,  etc.,  disappears  of  itself 

by  reabsorption  into  normal  industry  when 
these  crises  pass. 

d.  The  unemployed  of  one  day  are  not  the  unem- 

ployed of  another. 

2.  Unemployment    should    be    dealt    with    by    other 

means,  for 

a.  The  removal   of   causes   at  their   source  is   a 

more  effective  remedy  than  palliatives 
merely,  such  as  labor  exchanges. 

b.  Unemployment  cannot  be  abolished  altogether, 

for 

(i)     Industry  requires  a  reserve  fund  of  idle 
labor  for  its  expansion. 

c.  It  is  to  a  large  extent  simply  necessary  to  keep 

the  unemployed  efficient,  respected,  and 
within  call. 

d.  Other  .agencies  must  still  handle  the  unfit,  the 

untrained,  the  roving,  etc. 

e.  Vagrancy  could  not  be  recruited  from  the  un- 

employed if  the  public  was  not  indifferently 
tolerant  to  it. 

/.  Distress  incident  to  unemployment  indicates 
individual  or  social  weaknesses  themselves  in 
need  of  correction,  such  as  improvidence, 
inefficiency,  inadaptability. 

3.  The    community,    when    affected,    is    affected    by 

deeper  causes  than  the  simple  unemployment  of 
a  portion  of  its  population.  Those  remaining 
employed  maintain  fair  stability. 

4.  The  problem  is  particularly  one  of  economic  ad- 

justment and  relief  measures. 


xvi  BRIEF 

B.  A  remedy  is  not  needed  for  the  suppression  of  private 

agencies,  for 

1.  Abuses  are  not  typical,  for 

a.  Agencies  are  under  individual  management, 
and  as  such  are  under  moral  standards  of 
varying  degrees;  the  best  offices  do  not  per- 
mit the  evils  referred  to. 

2.  The  shortcomings  are  not  always  preventable,  for 

a.  They  may  themselves  receive  from  employers 

inadequate  information  with  regard  to  work. 

b.  Disappointed  men  may  not  report  their   fail- 

ure to  secure  work  or  favorable  terms,  for 
(i)     They  may  take  it  as  a  reflection  against 
themselves. 

3.  There   are  many   untried  ways   of   regulation   of 

private  bureaus  still  open. 

C.  Other  agencies  regulating  supply  and  demand  give  or 

can    be    made    to    give    sufficient    and    satisfactory 
service. 

1.  Existing  municipal  and  state  bureaus  can  be  put 

under  larger  appropriations  and  efficient  man- 
agement and  thus  do  greatly  extended  service 
as  well  as  demonstrate  their  efficacy  before  an 
extended  system  is  thought  of. 

2.  Newspapers  can  publish  wider  information  on  the 

labor  market. 

3.  Bulletins   sent  out   by  the  Department   of   Labor 

can  be  posted  in  post  offices  throughout  the 
country,  as  is  already  being  done  to  a  limited 
extent. 

4.  Employers'  associations  could  extend  their  organ- 

isms, and  in  particular  organize  themselves  by 
trades,  each  division  be  made  an  effective  clear- 
ing house  for  its  particular  class  of  work. 

5.  Trade  unions  deal  in  particular  with  the  efficient 

worker  and  the  fair  minded  employer. 

6.  The  industrial  classes  themselves,  to  a  very  large 

extent,  pass  on  information  concerning  situa- 
tions vacant. 


BRIEF  xvii 

II.    It  is  questionable  whether  they  fulfil  expectations,  for 

A.  They  would  not  improve  the  industrial  situation,  for 
i.    They  will  not  increase  the  number  of  jobs. 

B.  They  will  not  particularly  benefit  the  industrial  classes, 

for 

1.  It  is  a  question  whether  they  do  not  simply  result 

in  the  employment  of  workers  by  means  of 
registry,  when  the  same  workers  would  have 
been  placed  without. 

2.  They   weaken   the   character   of    the   workers   by 

removing    them     from     the     responsibility     of 
organization.    This  is  shown,  for 
a.    Many  will  not  accept  work  when  it  is  offered. 

C.  They  are  a  menace  to  the  standard  of  living,  for 

1.  They  attract  the  inefficient  worker  and  the  cheap 

labor  employer. 

2.  They  weaken  trade  unions,  for 

a.  Applicants  who  patronize  free  institutions  are 

of  the  class  that  have  made  little  or  no  effort 
on  their  own  behalf  by  joining  a  trade  union. 

b.  They   admit   all  types   of   workers  having  no 

common   understanding   as  to    remuneration 
and  conditions  to  be  sought  and  obtained. 

D.  They  are  simply  a  multiplication  of  official  machinery 

without  any  real  use  so  far  as  the  solution  of  un- 
employment is  concerned. 
x 

E.  The  system  is  not  unqualifiedly  approved  elsewhere, 

particularly  in  England,  Italy,   and  in  the  existing 
public  bureaus  in  the  United  States. 

III.    A   system    of    relief   on   a   national    scale   would   not   be 
desirable,  for* 

A.  It  would  be  unnecessary,  for 

i.  It  is  being  handled  locally  effectively  by  many 
municipalities  and  by  some  states,  in  particular 
New  York  and  Wisconsin. 

B.  It  would  be  paternalistic. 


xyiii  BRIEF 

IV.  Among  remedies  that  have  been  proposed  and  approved  by 
thoughtful  students  the  following  would,  singly  or  com- 
bined, to  an  important  extent,  modify  the  unemployment 
situation. 

A.     Unemployment  insurance,  for 

i.  It  would  tide  over  temporary  idlenesses,  without 
hardship. 

(SR.     Regularization  of  business,  for 

i.  It  would  prevent  idleness  now  resulting  from 
much  of  the  seasonal  work,  and  make  work 
more  secure. 

C.  Public  works,  for 

1.  They  would  utilize  the  changing  numbers  of  the 

unemployed  who  were  not  quickly  re-absorbed 
in  normal  industry. 

2.  They     would     promote     undertakings     of     public 

benefit. 

D.  Extension  of  vocational  education  and  guidance,  for 

1.  It  would   replace    unskilled   with    skilled,    efficient 

workers  whose  labor  was  in  demand. 

2.  It  would  reduce  over-supply  of  workers  in  crowded 

occupations. 

E.  Farm  colonies,  for 

i.  They  draw  surplus  population  from  congested 
centers  and  place  it  on  a  self-supporting  and 
wealth  producing  basis. 

F.  Reduction  of  hours  of  labor,  for 

i.  This  makes  room  for  additional  reserves  in  pres- 
ent industries. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


An  asterisk  (*)  preceding  a  reference  indicates  that  the  entire  article 
or  a  part  of  it  has  been  reprinted  in  this  volume.  Many  of  the  magazine 
articles  and  pamphlets  listed  here,  as  well  as  similar  material  that  may  be 
published  after  this  volume  is  issued,  may  be  secured  at  reasonable  rates 
from  the  Wilson  Package  Library  operated  by  The  H.  W.  Wilson  Company. 


BIBLIOGRAPHIES 

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the  Invasion  of  Their  Sanctuaries  by  the  Unemployed. 

Economic  Journal.  24:314-9.  Je.  '14.  Experiment  in  Decasuali- 
zation:  the  Liverpool  Docks  Scheme.  L.  S.  Woolf. 

Everybody's  Magazine.  18 : 649-59.  My.  '08.  Clearing-House  for 
Tramps.  Ernest  Poole. 

Fortnightly  Review.  60:454-63.  O.  '93.  Unemployed.  Arnold 
White. 

Fortnightly  Review.  90 : 964-80.  D.  '08.  Unemployment  at  Home 
and  Abroad.  J.  Ellis  Barker. 

Harper's  Monthly.  131 : 70-2.  Je.  '15.  Unemployment  and  Busi- 
ness. Elbert  H.  Gary. 

Harper's  Weekly.  52 :  io+.  Mr.  14,  '08.  Lengthening  Bread  Line. 
Victor  Rousseau. 

Harper's  Weekly.  53 : 15-6.  O.  16,  '09.  Man  of  Fifty.  Forbes 
Lindsay. 

Harper's  Weekly.  58:10-1.  My.  9,  '14.  Free  Speech,  With  and 
Without.  Lincoln  Steffens. 

Lend  a  Hand.  4 : 571-9.  Ag.  '89.  Mutual  Insurance  Against  En- 
forced Idleness.  Charles  E.  Buell. 

Literary  Digest.  43:51-2.  Jl.  8,  'n.  British  Insurance  Against 
Unemployment. 

Literary  Digest.  48 : 208-9.  Ja.  31,  '14.  Chicago's  Memorial  Hotel 
for  the  Unemployed. 

Literary  Digest.  50:154.  Ja.  23,  '15.  Church  Help  for  Unem- 
ployment. 

Living  Age.  265:43-9.  Ap.  2,  '10.  On  the  Pavement  With 
the  Unemployed.  Old  Chum. 

Living  Age.  277 : 525-9.  My.  31,  '13.    Out  of  Work.    Senex. 

Month.  57 : 1-12.  My.  '86.    Unemployed.    C.  S.  Devas. 

Nation.  86:458-9.  My.  21,  '08.    Heroic  Unemployed. 


xxviii  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Nation.  100: 100.  Ja.  28,  '15.    Relief  for  the  Unemployed  in  Ger- 
many. 

National  Municipal  Review.  4:276-9.  Ap.  '15.    Emergency  Relief 
in  Philadelphia.    W.  A.  Warner. 

Nature.  79 : 491-3.  F.  25,  '09.    Education  and  Employment. 

Nautilus.  17:  12-13.  My.  '15.    Why  the  Jobless  Prefer  Jail. 

New  Republic.  3 :  7-8.  My.  8,  '15.    Dangerous  Classes. 

Nineteenth  Century.  58 : 884-99.  D.  '05.     Unemployment  and  the 
Moloch  of  Free  Trade.    O.  Eltzbacher. 

Nineteenth  Century.  58 : 900-8.  D.  '05.     Continental  Light  on  the 
Unemployed  Problem.    Wilson  Carlile. 

Nineteenth  Century.  59 : 483-7.  Mr.  '06.    Unemployed  and  Trade 
Unions.    David  McLaren  Morrison. 

Nineteenth   Century.   65 : 153-62.   Ja.   '09.     Unemployment   from 
the  Unemployed  Point  of  View.     T.  Good. 

Nineteenth  Century.  65 : 283-98.  F.  '09.    British  Work  for  British 
Workers.    J.  Ellis  Barker. 

Nineteenth  Century.  65 : 272-82.  F.  '09.     Insurance  Against  Un- 
employment Scheme.    Edith  Sellers. 

Nineteenth  Century.  69:1104-23.  Je.  'n.     Facts  at  the  Back  of 
Unemployment.    W.  H.  Mallock. 

Nineteenth    Century.    70:385-9.    Ag.    'n.      England's    Plight. 
Arnold  Haultain. 

Nineteenth  Century.  77 : 227-37.  Ja.  '15.    Unemployment  and  the 
War.     H.  J.  Jennings. 

North   American   Review.    140 : 369-77.   Ap.    '85.     Army   of   the 
Discontented.    T.  V.  Powderly. 

North  American.  158:175-84.  F.  '94.     How  to  Help  the  Unem- 
ployed.    Henry  George. 

North  American.  185  :6o3-i3.  Jl.  '07.    Vagrant  and  the  Railroad. 
Orlando  F.  Lewis. 

North  American  Review.  200:900-7.  D.  '14.  Our  Army  of  Unem- 
ployed.    William  Parr  Capes. 

Outlook.    74:170-4.    My.    16,    '03.     Types   of   the   Unemployed. 
Percy  Alden. 

Outlook.  88:241-2.  F.  i,  '08.    Unemployed. 

Outlook.  89 :  133-4.  My.  23,  '08.     Unemployed  Problem. 

Outlook.  92 : 341-2.  Je.   12,   '09.     Unemployment ;    Some   of   Its 
Effects. 

Outlook.  08:21-6.  My.  6,  '11.     Man  at  the  Bottom  in  London. 
B.  T.  Washington. 
Same:  Washington,  B.  T.     Man  Farthest  Down.     21-6. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxix 

Outlook.  107:27-31.  My.  2,  '14.  Case  of  Adolf.  Mary  Heaton 
Vorse. 

Outlook.  107 : 770-1.  Ag.  i,  '14.    Jobs  for  the  Jobless. 

Public.  12:278-80.  Mr.  19,  '09.  Problems  and  Perils  of  the 
Unemployed. 

Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics.  8 : 453-77.  Jl.  '94.  Unemployed 
in  American  Cities.  Carlos  C.  Closson,  Jr. 

Quarterly  Review.  204:228-47.  Ja.  '06.  Unemployed  and  the 
Poor  Law. 

Review  of  Reviews.  32:615-16.  N.  '05.  How  Europe  Aids  the 
Unemployed. 

Review  of  Reviews.  33 : 40-1.  Ja.  '06.  England's  Problem  of  the 
Unemployed.  Agnes  C.  Laut. 

Review  of  Reviews.  37:336-9.  Mr.  '08.  Man  Out  of  Work 
To-day.  Arthur  P.  Kellogg. 

Review  of  Reviews.  37:489-90.  Ap.  '08.  Unemployment  in  the 
United  Kingdom. 

Review  of  Reviews.  39 : 71-6.  Ja.  '09.  Salvation  Army  and  Eng- 
land's Unemployed.  Agnes  C.  Laut. 

*Review  of  Reviews.  49 : 433-9.  Ap.  '14.  Our  Army  of  the  Un- 
employed. John  A.  Kingsbury. 

Review  of  Reviews.  51 : 112.  Ja.  '15.    Our  Army  of  Unemployed. 

Saturday  Evening  Post.  186:3+,  8~K  My.  9,  Je.  6,  '14.  Floating 
Laborer.  Will  Irwin. 

Scientific  American  Supplement.  72:394-6.  D.  16,  'n.  Insurance 
against  Unemployment  in  France:  Government  Aid. 

Scribner's  Magazine.  49:116-20.  Ja.  'n.  Experiments  in  Ger- 
many with  Unemployment  Insurance.  Elmer  Roberts. 

Spectator.  67 : 522-3.  O.  17,  '91.    Casual  Labour. 

Sunset.  34 :  434-5.  Mr.  '15.    Vanishing  Soup  Kitchen. 

Survey.  22:115-7.  Ap.  17,  '09.  Remedy  for  Unemployment. 
John  Martin. 

Survey.  22 : 196-210.  My.  I,  '09.  Irregularity  of  Employment  of 
Women  Factory  Workers.  Louise  C.  Odencrantz. 

*Survey.  31 : 136-8.  N.  I,  '13.  Drifters :  Unemployment  Problem 
of  the  Southwest.  Leon  Stern. 

Survey.  31 : 638-9.  F.  21,  '14.  Way  Out  of  the  Unemployment 
Situation.  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Survey.  31 : 667-9.  F.  28,  '14.  Unemployment,  a  World  Problem, 
and  the  Congress  at  Ghent.  Katharine  Coman. 


xxx  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Survey.  31 : 694.  Mr.  7,  '14.  Three  Bills  to  Distribute  Labor  and 
Reduce  Unemployment.  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Survey.  31 :  735.  Mr.  14,  '14.  Chicago's  City  Grocery  Store  for 
the  Unemployed. 

Survey.  31 :  742-4.  Mr.  14,  '14.  Insurance  Against  Unemploy- 
ment in  Norway  and  Denmark.  Katharine  Coman. 

Survey.  31 :  792-5.  Mr.  28,  '14.  Churches,  the  City  and  the  Army 
of  the  Unemployed  in  New  York. 

Survey.  31 :  796.  Mr.  28,  '14.  Provision  for  the  Unemployed  in 
Boston  and  in  Portland,  Oregon. 

*Survey.  31 :  799-802.  Mr.  28,  '14.  Great  Britain's  Experiment 
in  Compulsory  Unemployment  Insurance.  Katharine  Coman. 

Survey.  32:94^5.  Ap.  25,  '14.  Tannenbaum  in  the  Large.  John 
Haynes. 

Survey.  33 : 165.  N.  14,  '14.    Meeting  Unemployment  in  Canada. 

*Survey.  33 : 217-8.  N.  28,  '14.  Chicago  Plan  for  Meeting  Unem- 
ployment and  Destitution. 

Survey.  33:227-8.  D.  5,  '14.  Unemployment  vs.  the  Letter  of 
the  Law. 

Survey.  33:333-5.  D.  26,  '14.  Merrie  England  at  Yuletide  of 
1914.  Freda  Tcherkesoff. 

Survey.  33:473-4.  F.  6,  '15.  Two  Aspects  of  Unemployment  in 
Chicago. 

Survey.  33:516-7.  F.  6,  '15.  Unemployment  in  War  and  Peace. 
Graham  Taylor. 

Survey.  33:549-50.  F.  20,  '15.  Union  Out-of-Work  Benefits  in 
War  Times. 

Survey.  34:52-4.  Ap.  10,  '15.  Fighting  Unemployment  and  Des- 
titution in  Portland,  B.  C.  Owen;  Baltimore's  Workshop  and 
Labor  Exchange  for  the  Unemployed,  E.  Gilman;  The  Right 
of  a  Man  to  a  Job ;  The  State's  Opportunity,  O.  H.  Moore. 

Technical  World.  19:268-70.  Ap.  '13.  Schoolhouses  as  Employ- 
ment Agencies.  Robert  Franklin. 

Technical  World.  20:  759-64.  Ja.  '14.  Human  Scrap  Heap.  For- 
rest Crissey  and  Donald  Wilhelm. 

Technical  World.  21  -.808-13.  Ag.  '14.  Porterhouse  Heaven  and 
the  Hobo.  Walter  V.  Woehlke. 

Westminster  Review.  162:623-32.  D,  '04.  Social  Parasites. 
Charles  Rolleston. 

Westminster  Review.  166:25-31.  Jl.  '06.  Land  and  Unemploy- 
ment. H.  Wright. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxxi 

Westminster  Review.  170:693-702.  D.  '08.  Poverty  and  Unem- 
ployment. Sidney  Wyndham  Fitzherbert. 

Westminster  Review.  172:14-23.  Jl.  '09.  Unemployment:  Some 
Remedies.  W.  D.  Macgregor. 

Westminster  Review.  172:603-10.  D.  '09.  Talk  Unemployment. 
Lewis  H.  Berens. 

Westminster  Review.  173:  247-52.  Mr.  '10.  Aspects  of  Unemploy- 
ment. C.  J.  F.  M. 

Westminster  Review.  174:606-11.  D.  '10.  Cause  of  Unemploy- 
ment. Lex. 

World  To-Day.  14 : 357-8.  Ap.  '08.  Caring  for  the  Unemployed. 
Charles  Richmond  Henderson. 

World  To-Day.  20:661-9.  Je.  '11.  Crime  of  Being  Penniless. 
Edwin  A.  Brown. 

World  To-Day.  21:857-65.  Jl.  'n.  City  as  a  Landlord  for  the 
Poor.  Edwin  A.  Brown. 

World  To-Day.  21:946-8.  Ag.  'n.  Municipal  Emergency  Home 
a  National  Need.  Edwin  A.  Brown. 

World's  Work.  15 : 10158-60.  Ap.  '08.  Woman  Finding  Jobs  for 
the  Handicapped.  Mary  L.  H.  Brooks. 

AFFIRMATIVE  REFERENCES 
Magazine  Articles 

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Employment.  John  F.  Kavanagh. 

American  Journal  of  Sociology.  14:  289-305.  N.  '08.  Chicago 
Employment  Agency  and  the  Immigrant  Worker.  Grace 
Abbott. 

American  Journal  of  Sociology.  20:721-30.  My.  '15.  How  Chi- 
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American  Magazine.  73^465-8.  F.  '  12.  Men  in  the  Dark.  Theo- 
dore Dreiser. 

*  American  Magazine.  78:24-9.  D.  '14.  Golden  Rule  in  Business. 
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*Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  33:420-39.  Mr.  '09.  Prob- 
lem of  Unemployment  in  the  United  Kingdom,  with  a  Remedy 
by  Organization  and  Training.  Sidney  Webb.  (AW) 


xxxii  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  59:  157-64.  My.  '15.  Social- 
ism as  a  Cure  for  Unemployment.  John  Spargo. 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  59:165-84.  My.  '15.  Statu- 
tory Provisions  and  Achievements  of  Public  Employment 
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Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  59 : 185-93.  My.  '15.  Public 
Bureaus  of  Employment.  Charles  B.  Barnes. 

Arena.  19:684-5.  My.  '98.  Story  of  an  "Ad."  Henry  Matthews 
Williams. 

Atlantic  Monthly.  78  793-803.  D.  '96.  Colony  of  the  Unemployed. 
Josiah  Flynt. 

Atlantic  Monthly.  94 :  458-64.  O.  '04.  Intelligence  Office.  Frances 
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*Catholic  World.  92:  605-11.  F.  'n.  Looking  for  a  Job.  William 
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Charities.  12:151-2.  F.  6,  '04.  Immigration  and  Household  Labor. 
Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Charities  and  the  Commons.  20:608.  Ag.  22,  '08.  Municipal 
Insurance  against  Idleness. 

Chautauquan.  61 : 23-40.  D.  '10.  Problem  of  the  Unemployed. 
Percy  Alden. 

Chautauquan.  62:300-1.  My.  'n.  Great  Britain's  Labor  Exchange. 

*Congressional  Record.  51 :  appendix  413-16.  My.  i,  '14.  For  a 
Bureau  of  Employment.  Victor  Murdock. 

Contemporary  Review.  89:406-17.  Mr.  '06.  Unemployed.  G.  P. 
Gooch.  (AW) 

Contemporary  Review.  93 : 385-98.  Ap.  '08.  Unemployment  and 
Its  Cure:  the  First  Step.  W.  H.  Beveridge. 

Contemporary  Review.  96 : 458-67.  O.  '09.  Berlin  Labour  Ex- 
change. Eulenspiegel. 

Contemporary  Review.  99:723-32.  Jl.  *n.  Juvenile  Employment 
Bureaux.  M.  M.  Ogilvie  Gordon. 

Contemporary  Review.  104 : 230-9.  Ag.  '13.  Juvenile  Labour 
Exchanges  and  Apprenticeship  Bureaux  in  Germany.  Edith 
Edlmann. 

Contemporary  Review.  105 : 698-703.  My.  '14.  Humanity  of  the 
Labour  Exchanges.  Constance  M.  Spender. 

Current  Literature.  29:190.  Ag.  'oo.  French  Labor  Exchange. 
Walter  P.  Scaife. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxxiii 

Current  Literature.  34 : 87.  Ja.  '03.  Work  for  the  Unemployed. 
(AW) 

Everybody's  Magazine.  32 :  318-20.  Mr.  '15.  Guilty  of  Unemploy- 
ment. William  Hard.  (AW) 

Harper's  Bazar.  39 :  15-9.  Ja.  '05.  Servant  Question  Plus  the 
Employment  Bureau.  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Harper's  Monthly.  124:918-24.  My.  '12.  Reanchoring  the  Home. 
Robert  W.  Bruere. 

Harper's  Monthly.  127:95-101.  Je.  '13.  Equity  in  a  Job.  John 
L.  Mathews. 

Harper's  Weekly.  58:  28.  Mr.  28,  '14.  Jobless  Man  and  the  State. 
Gregory  Mason. 

*La  Follette's.  6:5+.  Je.  6,  '14.  Jobless  Man  and  the  Manless 
Job.  John  D.  Black. 

Ladies'  Home  Journal.  28:15-6.  Mr.  15,  '11.  What  I  Went 
Through  in  Trying  to  Get  a  Position.  J.  Duncan  Gleason. 

Ladies'  Home  Journal.  30:23.  S.  I,  '13.  Solving  the  Problem  of 
the  Unemployed.  Jane  Addams. 

Literary  Digest.  47 :  1067.  N.  29,  '13.  Our  Duty  to  the  Unem- 
ployed. 

Literary  Digest.  48:419-20.  F.  28,  '14.  Bringing  the  Jobless  Man 
to  the  Manless  Job. 

Literary  Digest.  48:593+.  Mr.  14,  '14.  Human  Side  of  Job- 
Finding. 

Literary  Digest.  49 :  1264.  D.  26,  '14.  Million  Men  Out  of  Work. 
(AW) 

Nation.  98:229-30.  Mr.  5,  '14.    Unemployment. 

Nation.  100 :  18.  Ja.  7,  '15.  Postal  Employment  Agency.  F.  W. 
Fitzpatrick. 

*National  Municipal  Review.  3 : 366-70.  Ap.  '14.  Is  Unemploy- 
ment a  Municipal  Problem?  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

*New  Republic,  i :  sup  1-8.  D.  26,  '14.  A  National  System  of 
Labor  Exchanges.  John  B.  Andrews. 

New  Republic.  2 :  supi2-3.  Ap.  17,  '15.  Out  of  Work.  Frances  A. 
Kellor.  Review. 

Nineteenth  Century.  32 : 845-63.  D.  '92.  Labour  Leaders  on  the 
Labour  Question:  Unemployed.  John  Burns.  (AW) 

Nineteenth  Century.  57 : 46-60.  Ja.  '05.  Dealing  with  the  Unem- 
ployed. J.  Keir  Hardie.  (AW) 

Same  cond.     Review  of  Reviews  3:  234-5.  F.  '05. 


xxxiv  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

*Nineteenth  Century.  64 :  763-76.  N.  '08.    How  Switzerland  Deals 

with  Her  Unemployed.     Edith  Sellers. 
Nineteenth  Century.  76:631-7.  S.  '14.     New  Labour  Exchange. 

Janet  E.  Courtney. 

Outlook.  106:  113-4.  Ja.  17,  '14.    Man  and  the  Job. 
Outlook.  106 :  567-9.  Mr.  14,  '14.    Unemployment  in  New  York. 
Outlook.  108:659-60.  N.  25,  '14.    Prospect  for  Employment. 
Outlook  109:54-6.  Ja.  13,  '15.     Remedies  for  Unemployment. 
Overland,  n.  s.  48:337-42.  N.  '06.    Question  of  the  Unemployed. 

Austin  Lewis.     (NW) 
Overland,  n.  s.  64 : 92-9.  Jl.  '14.    Unemployed  Problem.     Arthur 

Bedford. 

*Political  Science  Quarterly.  29 :  28-46.  Mr.  '14  Theory  of  Pub- 
lic Employment  Offices  and  the  Principles  of  Their  Practical 

Administration.     William  M.  Leiserson. 
Quarterly  Journal   of   Economics.    14:341-77.    My.   'oo.      Public 

Employment    Offices    in    the    United    States    and    Germany. 

E.  L.  Bogart. 

Same  cond.     Current  Literature  29:  192-3.  Ag.  'oo. 

Review  of  Reviews.  49 :  602-4.  My.  '14.    Public  Labor  Exchanges. 

Saturday  Evening  Post.  187 :  14+-  Jl.  4,  '14.  Floating  Laborer. 
Will  Irwin. 

Scientific  American.  106:134.  F.  10,  '12.  How  Germany  Han- 
dles the  Labor  Question.  Waldemar  Kaempffert. 

Survey.  22 : 216.  My.  i,  '09.     Against  Employment  Agencies. 

Survey.  25  : 248-9.  N.  12,  '10.  Employment  Exchange  Reports  on 
First  Year. 

Survey.  26:264-5.  My.  13,  'n.  Report  on  Unemployed  and  Lack 
of  Farm  Labor. 

Survey.  26:830-1.  S.  19,  'n.     Plan  to  Check  Unemployment. 

Survey.  31 :  541-2.  F.  7,  '14.  Crying  Need  for  Connecting  up  the 
Man  and  the  Job.  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Survey.  31 : 605-6.  F.  14,  '14.  Protest  of  the  Working  Women  of 
New  York.  (AW) 

Survey.  31:611.  F.  14,  '14.  Organizing  to  Fight  Unemployment 
Effectively.  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Survey.  31 : 633-5.  F.  21,  '14.  Municipal  Plans  for  the  Unem- 
ployed. (AW) 

Survey.  31 : 693.  Mr.  7,  '14.  First  National  Conference  on 
Unemployment. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxxv 

Survey.  32 :  195-6.  My.  16,  '14.  Directing  the  Work  Life  of  Eng- 
lish Children.  Olga  S.  Halsey. 

Survey.  32:230-1.  My.  30,  '14.  Employment  Agencies,  Socialism 
and  Unionism  on  the  Stand.  John  A.  Fitch. 

Survey.  32:400.  Jl.  u,  '14.  Employment  Agencies  in  Portland. 
Edwin  Anders. 

Survey.  32:523-4.  Ag.  22,  '14.  Armies  of  the  Unemployed  in 
California.  E.  Guy  Talbott. 

Survey.  33 : 48-50.  O.  10,  '14.  Unemployment  and  Public  Respon- 
sibility. Charles  B.  Barnes. 

Survey.  33 : 87.  O.  24,  '14.  Washington  State's  Employment 
Agency  Referendum.  W.  M.  Leiserson. 

Survey.  33:329-30.  D.  26,  '14.  New  York's  Program  for 
Un  emp  1  oy  m  ent . 

Survey.  33:402-3.  Ja.  9,  '15.  Unemployment  and  Compensation 
in  a  Pennsylvania  Setting. 

Survey.  33:441-2.  Ja.  23,  '15.  Public  and  Private  Plans  for 
Maintaining  Employment  in  Germany.  Alix  Westerkamp. 
(AW) 

Survey.  33 : 442-3.  Ja.  23,  '15.  Chicago's  Plans  for  Putting  Idle 
Citizens  at  Work  Again.  (A  W) 

Survey.  33 : 453-5.  Ja.  30,  '15.  Scrambling  to  Care  for  the  Unem- 
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Survey.  33 :  553-4.  F.  20,  '15.  Sharing  the  Load  of  Unemploy- 
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Westminster  Review.  163 :  148-55.  F.  '05.  Mischievous  Charity. 
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Westminster  Review.  171 :  154-9.  F.  '09.  Unemployment  and  its 
Cure :  Military  and  Technical  Instruction.  Clarence  Waterer. 

Westminster  Review.  171:544-51.  My.  '09.  Unemployment,  In- 
surance and  Labour  Exchanges.  T.  Good. 

Westminster  Review.  177:523-8.  My.  '12.  Unemployment  a 
National  Disgrace  and  Danger.  F.  W.  Orde  Ward. 

World  To-day.  17:815-9.  Ag.  '09.    Hunting  a  Job.    R.  C.  Pitzer. 

World's  Work.  10:6660-4.  S.  '05.  Need  any  Man  Lack  a  Job? 
Leroy  Scott.  (NW) 

World's  Work.  22:  14553-4.  Jl.  'n.    Job  of  Getting  Jobs. 


xxxvi  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

NEGATIVE  REFERENCES 
Magazine  Articles 

*Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  33 : 225-38.  Mr.  '09.  Em- 
ployment Bureau  for  the  People  of  New  York  City.  Edward 

T.  Devine. 
*Fortnightly  Review.  100:688-98.  O.  '13.    Labour  Exchanges  in 

England.    H.  W.  J.  Stone. 
*Nineteenth  Century.  58:116-26.  Jl.  '05.     Organised  Labour  and 

the  Unemployed  Problem.    Isaac  H.  Mitchell. 
*Nineteenth  Century.  64:331-42.  Ag.  '08.     A  Workman's  View 

of  the  Remedy  for  Unemployment.     James  G.   Hutchinson. 

(NW) 
*Outlook.  109:394-8.  F.  17,  '15.    Uncle  Sam:  Employment  Agent. 

William  B.  Wilson. 
Survey.  28:681-2.  Ag.  31,  '12.     Success  of  a  Free  Employment 

Bureau. 
Survey.   31 : 141-2.   N.   I,   '13.     Our   Many   Iliads.     Francis   H. 

McLean. 
Unpopular  Review.  3 :  134-48.  Ja.  '15.    What  Is  the  Chance  for  a 

Job? 
Westminster   Review.    172:237-44.    S.   '09.     Labour   Exchanges 

Here  and  Abroad.    G.  A.  Parry. 

REFERENCES  ON  WORK,  AFFIRMATIVE 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy.  5 : 1-27.  Jl.  '94.  Future  Prob- 
lem of  Charity  and  the  Unemployed.  John  Graham  Brooks. 

Arena.  9 : 822-6.  My.  '94.  Government  Work  for  Unemployed. 
B.  O.  Flower. 

Arena.  18:200-10.  Ag.  '97.  How  to  Increase  National  Wealth 
by  the  Employment  of  Paralyzed  Industry.  B.  O.  Flower. 

*Arena.  27:87-93.  Ja.  '02.  A  Problem  for  True  Statesmanship. 
B.  O.  Flower. 

Arena.  36 : 487-92.  N.  '06.  Work  for  the  Unemployed  in  Winter. 
Maynard  Butler. 

Arena.  37:191-5.  F.  '07.  English  Labor-Leader  on  the  Problem 
of  the  Unemployed.  George  Lansbury. 

Century.  76:470-4.  Jl.  '08.  Employment  for  the  Unemployed. 
Edmond  Kelly. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xxxvii 

Charities  and  the  Commons.  15 : 579-82.  F.  3,  '06.  Progress  with 
the  Unemployed  in  England.  F.  Herbert  Stead. 

Charities  and  the  Commons.  19 : 1464-7.  F.  I,  '08.  Out  of  Work ; 
Reasons  and  Emergency  Measures. 

Charities  and  the  Commons.  21:47-51.  O.  3,  '08.  Chicago's  Un- 
employed Help  Clean  the  City.  B.  Rosing. 

Charities  and  the  Commons.  21 : 285-6.  N.  14,  '08.  Alden  Unem- 
ployment Bill.  James  Mullenbach. 

Contemporary  Review.  52 :  770-80.  D.  '87.  Unemployed.  Bennet 
Burleigh. 

Contemporary  Review.  53:39-52,  276-85.  Ja.  F.  '88.     Workless, 
the  Thriftless,  and  the  Worthless.    Francis  Peek. 
Same.     Eclectic  Magazine.  110:373-81.  Mr.  '88. 

Contemporary  Review.  63:423-38.  Mar.  '93.  Unemployed  and 
the  Land.  Harold  E.  Moore. 

Contemporary  Review.  70:835-52.  D.  '96.  Unemployed.  W.  R. 
Bousfield. 

Contemporary  Review.  86 :  629-38.  N.  '04.  Unemployed :  Lessons 
of  the  Mansion  House  Fund.  W.  H.  Beveridge  and  H.  R. 
Maynard. 

Contemporary  Review.  89 :  106-20.  Ja.  '06.  Unemployed.  C.  F.  G. 
Masterman. 

Contemporary  Review.  107 : 58-66.  Ja.  '15.  Relief  of  War  Dis- 
tress. H.  Wilson  Harris. 

Current  Literature.  29 : 192.  Ag.  'oo.  State  Aid  for  the  Unem- 
ployed. Georgiana  Kendall. 

Fortnightly  Review.  60 : 741-9.  D.  '93.  Unemployed.  Samuel 
A.  Barnett. 

Fortnightly  Review.  84 :  1065-73.  D.  '05.  Problem  of  the  Unem- 
ployed and  Suggestions  for  Its  Solution.  Wilson  Carlile. 

Forum.  17:276-86.  My.  '94.  Necessity  of  State  Aid  to  the 
Unemployed.  Stanton  Coit. 

Forum.  17:497-509.  Je.  '94.  How  Baltimore  Banished  Tramps 
and  Helped  the  Idle.  E.  R.  L.  Gould. 

Gunton  (Social  Economist).  6:81-4.  F.  '94.  What  Shall  We 
Do  with  the  Unemployed? 

Harper's  Weekly.  51 : 284.  F.  23,  '07.  London  Unemployed. 
Sydney  Brooks. 

Independent.  65: 1108-10.  N.  12,  '08.  Unemployment  in  England. 
Edmund  Kelly. 

Literary  Digest.  50 : 305-6.  F.  13,  '15.    Mobilizing  the  Jobless. 


xxxviii  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Living  Age.  267:775-85.  D.  24,  '10.  Unemployable  and  the  Un- 
employed. Edith  Sellers. 

National  Municipal  Review.  4:69-75.  Ja.  '15.  Unemployment  in 
Our  Cities.  Frances  A.  Kellor. 

New  Republic.  2:250-1.  Ap.  10,  '15.  Federal  Use  of  the  Unem- 
ployed. 

Nineteenth  Century.  24 : 753-63.  N.  '88.  Training  Farms  for  the 
Unemployed.  Samuel  A.  Barnett. 

North  American  Review.  201 : 664-7.  My.  '15.  Unemployment 
and  Unperformance.  George  Harvey. 

Overland,  n.s.  64:293-6.  S.  '14.  Unemployment  and  Universal 
Peace.  George  Turner  Marsh. 

Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics.  5 :  1-23.  O.  '90.  Some  Experi- 
ments on  Behalf  of  the  Unemployed.  Amos  G.  Warner. 

Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics.  7 :  353-8.  Ap.  '93.  Unemployed 
in  German  Cities.  John  Graham  Brooks. 

Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics.  8:168-217.  Ja.  '94.  Unem- 
ployed in  American  Cities.  Charles  C.  Closson,  Jr. 

Review  of  Reviews.  9:29-40;  179-91,  Ja.,  F.  '94.  Relief  for  the 
Unemployed  in  American  Cities.  Albert  Shaw. 

Review  of  Reviews.  39 : 502.  Ap.  '09.  Public  Relief  of  the 
Unemployed  in  Switzerland. 

Review  of  Reviews.  51:277.  Mr.  '15.  Unemployment:  a  Na- 
tional Problem. 

*Scientific  American  Supplement.  60 : 24679-80.  Jl.  8,  '05.  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  on  the  Cause  and  Remedy  for  Unemployment 

Survey.  22 : 263-4.  My.  22,  '09.  Quarry  and  Colony  for  the 
Unemployed  in  Kansas  City. 

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Survey.  30:  729-31.  S.  20,  '13.  Duluth  Rock  Pile.  W.  M.  Leiser- 
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War. 

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Efforts  in  Seventeen  Cities. 


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serve for  Lean  Years  and  Seasons.  N.  I.  Stone. 

Westminster  Review.  164 : 34-40.  Jl.  '05.     Right  to  Employment. 

Westminster  Review.  165 : 36-40.  Ja.  '06.  How  to  Deal  with  the 
Unemployed.  Frederick  Thoresby. 

Westminster  Review.  166 : 37-40.  Jl.  '06.  Agriculture  and  the 
Unemployed  Problem.  Richard  Higgs. 

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W.  Bailey. 

World  To-Day.  8:623-5.  Je.  '05.  Problem  of  the  Unemployed 
in  England.  E.  Douglas  Shields. 

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John  Bascom. 
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and  Where  are  the  Unemployed.    Chart. 
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Unemployed.    G.  P.  MacDonell. 
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London.    Henry  R.  Seager. 
Charities   and  the   Commons.    15 : 585-7.   F.   3,   '06.     Factors  in 

England's  Relief  Problem. 
Charities  and  the  Commons.   19 :  1587-8.  F.    15,  '08.     Industrial 

Conditions. 
Charities  and  the  Commons.  20:9-12.  Ap.  4,  '08.     Traffic  Squad 

at  Union  Square.    Arthur  P.  Kellogg. 

Charities  and  the  Commons.  21 :  7-8.  O.  3,  '08.    Methodist  Fed- 
eration on  Unemployment. 
Charities  Review.  3:373-82.  Je.  '94.     English  Municipalities  and 

the  Unemployed.    Edward  Porritt. 
Edinburgh  Review.  204 :  293-305.  O.  '06.     Socialism  in  the  House 

of  Commons. 

Edinburgh  Review.  213:  180-09.  Ja.  'n.    Right  to  Work. 
Forum.   16 : 655-62.  F.  '94.     Methods  of  Relief  for  the  Unem- 
ployed.   Josephine  Shaw  Lowell. 
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D.  McG.  Means. 
Harper's   Weekly.   50 : 1350.    S.   22,   '06.     English   Unemployed. 

Sydney  Brooks. 


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Journal  of  Political  Economy.  15 : 513-30.  N.  '07.  Municipal 
Employment  of  Unemployed  Women  in  London.  Edith 
Abbott. 

Journal  of  Political  Economy.  21 : 313-31.  Ap.  '13.  Problem  of 
Unemployment.  I.  M.  Rubinow. 

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*Living  Age.  256:611-25.  Mr.  7,  '08.    Right  to  Work. 

Same.     Quarterly  Review.  208:  203-24.  Ja.  '08. 

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Defeat 'of  the  Unemployed  Bill. 

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the  Unemployed.  William  M.  Salter. 

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J.  A.  R.  Marriott. 

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ployed in  England. 

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Same.     Living  Age.  256:  611-25.  Mr.  7,  '08. 

Spectator.  59 : 245-6.  F.  20,  '86.  State  Relief  for  the  Unem- 
ployed. 

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ployment. P.  S.  G.  Propert. 

Westminster  Review.  169:376-87.  Ap.  '08.  Sociological  View 
of  Unemployment.  Howard  Howgrave. 

Westminster  Review.  172 :  173-80.  Ag.  '09.  The  State's  Respon- 
sibility for  Unemployment.  P.  Dougan. 

*Westminster  Review.  178:270-6.  S.  '12.  Employment  and  Un- 
employment :  the  Latest  Phase.  R.  C.  Davison. 


SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 
UNEMPLOYMENT 


INTRODUCTION 


The  problem  of  Unemployment  is  listed  among  the  worst 
and  most  widespread  of  our  present  industrial  evils.  It  is 
admitted  that  a  large  portion  of  our  population  is  at  all  times 
unemployed;  but  in  times  of  depression  or  of  great  crises  the 
number  is  alarmingly  increased. 

As  we  turn  back  the  pages  of  history,  there  is  occasional 
proof  that  this  problem  was  met  and  handled.  For  instance, 
there  is  a  tradition  that  in  the  civilization  of  ancient  Peru, 
where  the  government  was  paternalistic  and  hierarchical,  every 
unit  of  society  was  responsible  for  classes  below,  and  the  king 
and  government  were  responsible  for  all.  Also  in  the  middle 
ages  when  feudalism  was  supreme  the  system  that  grew  up 
provided  a  refuge  from  want  for  the  dependent  masses  of  the 
people.  But  protection  was  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule, 
for  since  time  began  there  have  been  human  beings  who  either 
because  of  maladjustment  to  any  part  of  the  economic  machin- 
ery operating  their  little  world,  or  because  of  a  lack  of  the 
machinery's  need  of  the  service  they  could  render  have  been 
left  by  the  wayside.  While  it  is  safe  to  say  that  Unemployment 
has  always  existed  history  has  not  cleared  up  for  us  just  where 
the  question  of  Unemployment  assumed  the  proportions  of  a 
problem.  But  problem  it  always  has  been,  for  chronicles  throw- 
ing light  upon  the  social  condition  of  the  masses  through  the 
ages  indirectly  emphasize  suffering  and  distress  in  their  numer- 
ous allusions  to  the  poor,  to  beggars,  to  agrarian  laws  and 
land  laws,  and  to  charities  and  other  measures  for  the  relief  of 
people  in  want. 

It  is,  however,  with  the  modern  aspect  of  the  question  that 
we  are  vitally  concerned  now.  Unemployment  may  be  said  to 
be  essentially  a  problem  of  today  in  that  the  multiplications  of 


2  SELSCTELi  ARTICLES  ON 

large  capitalized  establishments  and  the  consequent  reduction  of 
independent  industrial  effort,  as  well  as  the  artificial,  increas- 
ingly congested  life  of  the  cities,  have  made  the  welfare  of 
those  without  assured  means  of  support  depend  upon  every 
economic  change  in  the  nation,  state,  municipality,  and  private 
business.  The  working  man's  bread  and  butter  is  at  the  mercy 
of  the  economic  shifts.  He  may  be  moved  up  a  peg,  or  he 
may  be  sidetracked  altogether.  Neither  skill  nor  education  can 
absolutely  secure  him  against  hazards.  For  the  tests  of  new- 
found efficiency  in  industry  often  involve  factors  which  training 
of  the  past  decade  has  overlooked.  The  human  material  that 
is  lopped  off  is  cast  unthinkingly  aside.  Modern  industry  in- 
cludes the  survival  of  the  fittest  among  its  unwritten  doctrines. 
Changing  fashions,  casual  employment,  handicaps,  lack  of  train- 
ing, the  presence  of  underpaid  women  and  children  in  industry, 
bad  labor  laws,  the  prevalence  of  industrial  accidents  and  debili- 
tating conditions  of  labor  are  among  the  causes  that  account 
for  the  general  unrest  of  the  working  man  and  the  instability 
of  his  service. 

Although  there  was  undoubtedly  much  economic  distress  in 
the  United  States  prior  to  1893,  the  problem  of  Unemployment 
seems  first  to  have  come  prominently  into  public  notice  in  that 
year,  when,  during  the  period  of  severe  industrial  depression 
and  panic,  Coxey's  army  marched  to  Washington  in  a  body 
petitioning  for  work.  Since  then,  from  time  to  time,  there 
have  occurred  periods  of  national  distress  or  threatenings  of 
distress  which  have  resulted  in  business  depression  and  attendant 
paralysis  of  personal  effort  with  its  accompanying  discontent. 
The  growing  seriousness  of  the  problem  involves  not  alone 
physical  distress,  however  grave  such  distress  may  be,  but  the 
poignant  mental  suffering  of  the  classes  involved.  Growing 
rebellion  against  the  fetters  of  the  present  industrialism  is  read 
in  the  trades  union  doctrines  of  collective  bargaining,  in  social- 
istic principles,  and  in  the  exposure  of  corruption  in  high  places. 
The  working  man  is  clamoring  for  his  rights ;  for  a  recognition 
of  the  new  idea  of  justice  that  gives  to  every  human  being 
what  he  needs  rather  than  what,  according  to  the  old  conception 
of  justice,  he  can  afford. 

In  the  time  of  Henry  VIII  society  removed  72,000  destitute 
people  by  hanging.  There  seemed  to  be  nothing  else  to  do  with 
them.  Today  we  have  industrial  commissions  to  study  ways 
and  means  of  dealing  with  the  problem  of  Unemployment. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  3 

Further,  we  have  Unemployment  and  labor  legislative  conven- 
tions, distress  committees,  municipal  committees  and  charity 
organizations  whose  object  is  to  deal  intelligently  and  con- 
structively with  the  business  of  relieving  the  situation.  These 
various  means  seem  inadequate  to  cope  with  the  overwhelming 
amount  of  work  to  be  done.  For  only  consider  the  hundreds 
of  homeless  in  the  big  cities  who  invade  churches,  overflow  the 
municipal  lodging  houses  and  piers ;  the  insurrection  of  hundreds 
of  laborers  in  the  West ;  the  menace  of  Kelly's  army ;  the  unique 
generalship  of  Pauly  with  his  Hotel  de  Gink;  the  driving  of 
thousands  from  city  to  city  in  the  far  West  with  clubs,  pick 
handles,  fire  hose,  bayonets,  bullets,  even  tar  and  feathers; 
and  the  decree  of  Canada  for  the  deportation  of  out-of-works 
who  had  been  in  the  country  less  than  three  years! 

Clearly  the  remedial  measures  for  the  Unemployment  diffi- 
culty have  not  been  adequate  for  the  problem.  But  wise  heads 
are  at  work  devising  better  methods.  Public  labor  exchanges, 
where  a  register  of  the  unemployed  is  kept  and  where  situations 
open  are  listed,  have  been  tried  out  with  satisfactory  results. 
It  seems  to  be  the  normal,  scientific  way  to  bring  jobs  and 
workmen  together.  So  it  is  hoped  that  not  only  will  Unem- 
ployment be  greatly  reduced  but  a  sound  method  be  operated 
for  getting  at  and  dealing  helpfully  with  the  residue  of 
unemployed  for  whom  no  jobs  exist. 

Employment  agencies  are  at  present  of  six  general  classes : 
(i)  Agencies  connected  with  trade  unions;  (2)  Agencies  estab- 
lished by  workmen  without  trade  union  association;  (3)  Agencies 
established  by  employers;  (4)  Commercial  bureaus;  (5)  Charit- 
able or  philanthropic  bureaus;  (6)  Bureaus  established  by  the 
municipality  or  state.  The  commercial  bureaus  are  the  most 
widespread  and  important  of  these  classes  at  the  present  day 
and  against  their  shortcomings  is  directed  much  present  dis- 
satisfaction. The  latest  and  most  approved  development  of  the 
last  class  is  concerned  with  their  federalization  under  govern- 
ment operation  and  a  central  clearing  house.  It  is  this  subject 
which  is  largely  emphasized  in  the  present  debate  on  the  sub- 
ject. Schemes  of  public  work,  access  to  the  land,  etc.,  deal 
more  generally  with  relief,  with  cause  and  effect,  than  with  the 
machinery  of  organization. 

JULIA  E.  JOHNSEN. 
September  i,  1915. 


GENERAL  DISCUSSION  ON  PUBLIC 
LABOR  EXCHANGES 

Review  of  Reviews.    49:433-9-    April  1914 

Our  Army  of  the  Unemployed.    John  A.  Kingsbury 

America  is  awakening  to  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  she 
has  a  large  standing  army  of  unemployed — an  army  probably 
many  times  larger  than  the  regular  army  of  which  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  is  commander-in-chief.  For  those 
who  march  in  this  army,  there  is  no  discrimination  as  to  age, 
sex,  physical,  or  mental  condition.  All  are  eligible.  A  majority 
of  wage  earners  enter  the  ranks  more  or  less  frequently.  In 
addition  to  this  regular  army  of  unemployed,  which  marches 
about  the  country  in  search  of  seasonal  occupations,  there  are 
troops  of  volunteer  recruits,  which  periodically  swell  its  ranks. 
The  army  of  the  unemployed  is  unorganized.  Its  companies 
are  either  not  commanded  or  poorly  commanded.  It  has  some 
captains,  but  no  generals.  It  is  well  known  that  a  disorganized 
army — an  army  without  an  able  commander — is  a  source  not  of 
security,  but  of  danger  to  a  community  in  which  it  exists.  The 
United  States  has  quartered  in  every  city,  in  every  industrial 
community,  her  regular  army  of  unemployed  men,  women,  and 
children,  who  are  out  of  work  at  some  season  of  the  year. 
At  times  like  the  present,  when  the  army  is  swelled  by  the 
addition  of  those  forced  into  the  ranks,  there  is  always  a  large 
number  of  volunteers  ready  for  service— especially  about  the 
mess-house.  They  are  the  camp  followers  who  capitalize  a 
condition  of  abnormal  unemployment. 

The  sane  men  of  this  country  have  at  last  sighted  this  army. 
They  are  beginning  to  realize  that  its  presence  in  our  midst, 
disorganized  and  uncommanded,  constitutes  one  of  the  greatest 
social  problems  which  confronts  this  country  today.  States- 
men and  students,  economists  and  wise  business  men,  labor 
leaders  and  social  workers  everywhere,  are  demanding  that  this 
problem  shall  be  stated  clearly,  that  the  facts  in  relation  to  it 
shall  be  gathered  and  analyzed,  and  that  the  solution  for  it 


6  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

must  be  found.  They  are  insisting  that  America  shall  no  longer 
lag  behind  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world  in  this  phase  of  its 
industrial  organization. 

In  many  aspects  of  industry  the  United  States  has  caught 
up  and  overtaken  her  sisters  across  the  water;  she  has  studied 
to  her  advantage  the  experience  of  European  countries;  she 
has  taken  the  best  which  they  have  to  offer  and  has  made  it 
better.  But  in  the  matter  of  dealing  with  her  men  and  women 
out  of  work,  she  has  failed  lamentably.  With  the  experience 
of  Germany  before  her,  with  England  to  stimulate  her,  with 
little  Denmark  clearly  pointing  the  way — America  has  stood 
deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  in  the  presence  of  this  great  social 
problem. 

To  be  sure,  a  few  of  the  more  intelligent  states — Wisconsin, 
Massachusetts,  and  Oregon — have  made  creditable  beginnings, 
not  simply  in  stating  the  problem,  but  in  finding  a  solution 
for  it.  The  larger  communities,  however — the  most  wealthy 
cities,  the  big  industrial  centers  which  command  the  ablest 
talent  in  most  every  phase  of  life — are  just  reaching  the  stage 
of  awareness  that  a  problem  exists. 

No  one  today  will  dispute  the  fact  that  even  in  prosperous 
times  our  present  industrial  organization  maintains  a  standing 
army  of  unemployed.  While  it  is  true  that  the  enemy  of  this 
army — shortage  of  labor — exists  in  some  communities,  there  is 
no  adequate  organization  to  enable  the  condition  of  under- 
employment to  absorb  the  army  of  the  unemployed.  During 
the  past  winter  there  has  been  no  end  of  talk  in  the  United 
States  in  relation  to  Unemployment;  no  end  of  guesses  as  to 
the  extent  of  it;  no  end  of  suggestions  as  to  measures  of  relief, 
cure,  and  prevention — but  nobody  knows  the  extent  of  Unem- 
ployment and  few  seem  to  understand  how  to  meet  the  problem 

We  have  to  confess  that  accurate  information  is  not  avail- 
able. There  is  no  roll  for  the  registration  of  the  recruits. 
That  the  number  of  unemployed  is  abnormal,  however,  seems 
to  many  to  be  self-evident.  Moreover,  there  are  certain  data 
which  seem  reliable.  The  Municipal  Lodging  House  in  New 
York  City  has  lodged  and  fed  more  men  and  women  during  the 
past  winter  than  in  the  two  preceding  winters  combined.  It  is 
believed  that  the  attendance  at  municipal  lodging  houses  is  a 
fair  index  of  the  extent  of  Unemployment,  though  it  is  impos- 
sible to  attempt  to  state  an  exact  ratio.  Then  we  have  certain 


UNEMPLOYMENT  7 

statistics  of  the  Departments  of  Labor  of  the  different  states 
and  of  the  nation  which  seem  to  be  fairly  reliable.  According 
to  a  recent  bulletin  of  the  New  York  State  Department  of 
Labor,  out  of  some  600,000  organized  *wage-earners,  over 
101,000  persons  were  idle  on  September  30,  1913.  The  bulletin 
states  that  with  one  exception  this  is  the  greatest  number  of 
unemployed  reported  in  any  year  during  the  past  seventeen 
years,  and  probably  larger  than  during  any  previous  year.  The 
ratio  of  unemployed,  16.1  per  cent,  was  exceeded  in  the  last 
seventeen  years  only  in  1908,  when  it  was  22.5  per  cent.  Apply- 
ing this  percentage  to  the  unorganized  wage-earners,  it  is  esti- 
mated that  the  total  number  of  unemployed  in  New  York  state 
on  September  30,  1913,  was  300,000.  Social  workers  more  or 
less  conversant  with  this  problem,  have  variously  estimated  the 
number  of  unemployed  in  the  city  of  New  York  during  the  past 
winter  at  from  100,000  to  325,000. 

At  the  recent  national  conference  on  Unemployment,  held  in 
New  York  City,  under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Association 
for  Labor  Legislation,  opinions  in  reference  to  the  extent  of 
Unemployment  were  expressed  by  men  and  women  from  all 
over  the  country.  While  the  consensus  of  opinion  seemed  to  be 
that  Unemployment  throughout  the  country  is  at  present  abnor- 
mal, though  perhaps  not  so  abnormal  as  many  would  have  us 
believe,  no  less  an  authority  than  Prof.  Charles  R.  Henderson, 
secretary  of  the  Chicago  Commission  on  Unemployment,  stated 
that  as  a  result  of  the  study  of  that  commission,  it  was  his 
belief  that  in  Chicago  the  amount  of  unemployment  was  not 
unusual.  Other  eminent  persons  voiced  similar  opinions  with 
reference  to  their  localities. 

There  are  other  indications  pointing  to  an  abnormal  con- 
dition— soup  houses  have  been  established  in  several  cities; 
bread  lines  have  been  multiplied;  free  lodging  houses  have  been 
opened  up;  churches  have  been  feeding  and  sheltering  the 
"alleged  unemployed" — in  fact,  the  army  has  literally  invaded, 
stormed,  and  taken  possession  of  churches.  There  has  been  a 
cry  to  throw  open  the  armories  and  other  public  buildings.  In 
some  instances  this  cry  has  been  heeded.  This  indication,  how- 
ever, is  not  a  safe  one  by  which  to  gauge  the  extent  of  Unem- 
ployment, for  in  times  when  there  is  talk  of  an  unusual  amount 
of  Unemployment  there  is  always  a  cry  to  open  up  armories 
and  churches. 


8  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

There  is  a  demand  for  bread  lines  and  soup  houses,  and 
the  demand  is  usually  supplied.  But  people  familiar  with  the 
history  of  Unemployment,  those  who  have  profited  by  experi- 
ence in  dealing  with  questions  of  this  kind,  know  perfectly  well 
that  a  city  can  have  all  the  bread  lines  it  is  willing  to  pay 
for.  It  usually  can  fill  all  the  free  beds  it  is  willing  to  provide. 
Bread  lines  and  free  shelters  are  symptoms  of  the  condition. 
They  are  not  safe  indications  of  the  extent  of  it.  They  develop 
as  a  natural  part  of  the  social  problem  presented  by  unemploy- 
ment, because  unemployment  is  a  problem  of  relief  as  well  as 
of  industry.  As  a  problem  of  relief  it  must  be  handled  with 
the  same  intelligence  and  discrimination  as  must  the  problem 
of  industry. 

To  establish  bread  lines,  to  throw  open  churches,  to  provide 
"relief  works,"  is  usually  to  invite  endless  trouble  and  to  do 
untold  harm  to  the  honest  unemployed,  anxious  and  willing  to 
work,  those  who  for  the  first  time  are  obliged  to  seek  relief. 
Mr.  Frederic  C.  Almy,  one  of  the  most  prominent  social  work- 
ers in  the  country,  has  said,  "Relief,  like  cocaine,  relieves  pain, 
but  it  creates  an  appetite."  Cocaine  should  be  administered  only 
upon  the  advice  of  a  physician.  Similarly,  relief  should  be 
administered  only  by  experienced  hands.  There  are  those  who 
remember  that  twenty  years  ago  in  the  panic  times,  New  York 
City  appropriated  $1,000,000  for  so-called  public  "relief  works," 
and  those  who  remember  it  say  that  the  public  was  "worked" 
to  the  extent  of  almost  the  entire  million. 

An  English  committee  on  vagrancy,  in  a  report  issued  in 
February,  1906,  strongly  vetoes  the  indiscriminate  distribution 
of  free  food.  "The  effects  of  indiscriminate  alms-giving  and 
of  the  cheap  and  free  shelters  in  London  and  other  large  towns 
in  attracting  vagrants  and  making  easy  that  way  of  life,"  are 
brought  out  in  this  report.  "Having  regard  to  the  evidence  we 
have  received,"  the  committee  concludes,  "we  can  come  to  no 
other  conclusion  than  that  free  or  cheap  shelters,  coupled  with 
indiscriminate  distribution  of  free  meals,  constitute  a  serious 
evil.  The  maintenance  of  shelters  as  at  present  conducted  and 
the  free  distribution  of  food  to  all  comers,  simply  perpetuates 
the  evil  conditions  and  in  no  way  remedies  the  disease." 

The  condition  existing  in  San  Francisco  and  other  American 
cities  reminds  one  of  conditions  growing  out  of  the  Mansion 
House  Fund  in  England  in  1885.  "There  are  men  still  living 


UNEMPLOYMENT  9 

in  England  among  the  unemployed  today  who  can  recall  with 
regret  those  golden  days,"  says  Beveridge,  in  his  recent  book  on 
"Unemployment"  He  tells  us:  "There  are  men  experienced 
in  observing  and  dealing  with  distress,  who  say  that  East  and 
South  London  have  scarcely  yet  recovered  from  the  demoraliza- 
tion of  that  orgy  of  relief."  England  has  learned  from  experi- 
ence, by  which  American  cities  should  profit.  If  San  Francisco 
and  other  cities  which  have  opened  free  shelters  or  provided 
relief  works,  had  studied  New  York's  experience  of  twenty 
years  ago  and  London's  experience  of  the  past  hundred  years, 
they  probably  would  not  have  been  having  the  trouble  that  they 
have  had  this  winter. 

Its  appropriation  for  the  free  feeding  and  lodging  of  the 
unemployed,  advertised  as  it  was  throughout  the  country,  un- 
doubtedly gave  San  Francisco  an  abnormal  problem  to  deal  with. 
If  New  York  had  not  withstood  the  demand  to  open  its 
armories  and  to  a  large  degree  its  churches,  its  situation  surely 
would  have  been  much  more  serious.  It  is  also  evident  to 
anyone  who  studies  the  situation  that  the  establishment  of  such 
agencies  for  the  indiscriminate  provision  of  free  meals  and 
lodging,  constitutes  the  same  danger  to  the  body  politic  that  the 
human  body  suffers  from  a  free  use  of  baneful  drugs. 

The  problem  of  Unemployment  with  which  this  country  is 
confronted  today  is  a  problem  of  relief  and  a  problem  of 
industry.  When  men  and  women  are  out  of  work  and  out  of 
funds,  it  goes  without  saying  that  they  should  be  provided 
with  one  or  the  other,  or  a  suitable  substitute  which  will 
prevent  suffering  without  undermining  their  independence.  It 
would  be  unnatural  and  inhuman  to  let  men  willing  to  work 
suffer  for  food  or  for  shelter,  but  food  and  shelter  should  be 
provided  with  the  most  careful  discrimination.  Therefore,  relief 
should  come  through  well-organized  channels,  directed  by  people 
of  experience,  not  through  temporary  committees  under  the 
direction  of  persons  who  have  only  sympathy  and  sentiment  as 
a  guide.  For  example,  in  New  York  City  the  agencies  which 
naturally  should  deal  with  the  problem  of  relief  are  the 
Department  of  Public  Charities  and  the  private  organizations 
— such  as  the  New  York  Association  for  Improving  the  Con- 
dition of  the  Poor,  the  Charity  Organization  Society,  the  United 
Hebrew  Charities  and  the  Society  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul — 
the  private  agencies  dealing  chiefly  with  families  made  depend- 


10  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

ent  because  of  unemployment.  The  Departmnt  of  Public 
Charities,  through  its  municipal  lodging  house  and  its  other 
institutions,  deals  with  homeless  men  and  women,  who  con- 
stitute a  large  part  of  those  requiring  relief. 

The  situation  in  New  York  City  has  at  no  time  this  winter 
been  beyond  the  control  of  these  organized  agencies.  There 
has  been  no  need  for  opening  churches  nor  for  the  church 
invasions.  The  notorious  Mr.  Tannenbaum  says  that  the  muni- 
cipal lodging  house  is  unfit  for  a  dog  to  sleep  in.  A  visit  to 
the  lodging  house  would  completely  refute  this  charge.  The 
fact  is,  this  municipal  lodging  house  is  a  well-appointed  six- 
story  structure,  erected  at  a  cost  of  $400,000,  with  accommoda- 
tions for  nearly  a  thousand  men  and  women.  In  this  institution 
unfortunates  of  all  nationalities,  conditions,  and  types  are 
harbored. 

In  the  long  line  of  applicants  waiting  nightly  to  be  reg- 
istered, one  finds  here  a  man  old,  feeble,  and  helpless,  obviously 
unfit  for  any  kind  of  work,  depending  entirely  upon  charity; 
behind  him  may  be  a  youth  strong,  eager,  capable,  but  unable  to 
find  an  employer  to  make  use  of  his  sturdy  strength  and  ready 
willingness;  next  to  him  slouches  in  line  a  sluggish,  illiterate 
Slav,  unable  to  speak  a  word  of  English;  restless  at  his  back 
there  stands  an  alert  young  American,  who,  impelled  by  an 
adventurous  and  ambitious  spirit,  has  come  from  some  country 
town  or  smaller  city,  lured  to  New  York  by  bigger  things  to 
be  accomplished,  but  now  he  is  unable  to  find  anywhere  an 
opening  which  will  give  him  his  chance.  So,  disappointed  and 
for  the  moment  down,  his  small  store  of  money  gone,  he,  too, 
must  for  the  time  be  the  city's  guest;  and  furtively  waiting  a 
little  further  along  is  to  be  found  the  inevitable  vagrant,  whose 
only  ambition  is  successfully  to  dodge  anything  that  has  the 
semblance  of  manual  or  mental  labor. 

In  the  shorter  line  at  the  women's  entrance  are  to  be  seen 
the  hopeless  faces  of  lonely  mothers  or  forlorn  young  girls, 
some  perhaps  unmarried  though  carrying  little  babes;  others 
left  penniless  by  the  desertion  of  their  husbands  or  the  death 
of  parents.  All  these,  and  many  other  types,  the  visitor  at  the 
city's  lodging  house  may  see.  They  have  been  employed  at 
various  times  in  divers  occupations. 

Out  of  a  total  of  46,825  persons  sheltered  in  the  Municipal 
Lodging  House  during  the  month  of  February  this  year,  5,243 


UNEMPLOYMENT  11 

had  been  employed  by  contractors,  563  by  farmers,  3,945  in 
restaurants,  431  in  hospitals,  1,438  as  sailors,  844  as  machinists, 
1,227  as  porters,  619  as  clerks,  1,830  as  drivers,  1,525  as  firemen, 
948  as  painters,  456  as  carpenters,  15,734  as  day  laborers,  441 
as  housewives,  766  as  domestics,  3,199  as  house  helpers;  7,141 
had  been  employed  in  the  various  capacities  classed  as  miscel- 
laneous, and  there  were  745  children,  mostly  babies. 

Each  night,  after  these  men  and  women  have  registered 
and  have  given  the  necessary  information,  they  are  served  a 
simple  but  nourishing  meal  of  soup,  bread,  and  coffee.  They 
then  check  their  "valuables"  and  their  clothes.  The  latter  are 
hung  on  racks  and  are  placed  in  the  sterilizing  chamber  for  an 
hour,  where  they  are  subjected  to  a  very  high  temperature  and 
to  the  fumes  of  formaldehyde  and  ammonia,  which  counteract 
each  other,  leaving  the  clothes  free  from  a  disagreeable  odor. 
Each  person  is  required  to  enter  the  shower-room.  After  his 
bath  he  is  given  a  clean  nightshirt,  is  sent  upstairs  in  the  ele- 
vator, passes  before  the  doctor  for  a  general  physical  exami- 
nation, and  then,  unless  he  is  found  to  be  in  need  of  hospital 
treatment,  is  assigned  to  an  individual  spring  cot,  with  clean 
sheets  and  warm  coverings,  where  he  has  before  him  a  quiet 
night  of  restful  slumber  in  a  well-ventilated  room.  The  descrip- 
tion of  this  lodging  house  hardly  justifies  the  title  of  the  "hog 
pen,"  which  those  who  dislike  to  register  and  take  a  bath,  but 
prefer  to  beg  on  the  streets,  are  wont  to  style  it. 

However,  when  the  Mitchel  administration  came  into  power 
in  New  York  City,  on  the  first  of  January  last,  it  found  that 
there  were  each  night  nearly  2,000  applicants  for  less  than 
1,000  beds.  While  the  Department  of  Public  Charities  was 
giving  food  and  shelter  of  some  kind  to  all  who  applied,  the 
character  of  the  shelter  offered  to  some  was  little  better  than 
the  shelter  which  one  would  offer  to  his  dog.  The  lodging 
house  had  been  thus  overcrowded  since  the  night  of  Novem- 
ber 8,  1913.  Men  had  been  packed  on  the  floors  of  the  city's 
boats,  in  the  waiting-rooms  of  the  Department  of  Public 
Charities,  and  in  the  detention-pens  of  the  Department  of 
Correction. 

To  meet  the  situation,  the  new  administration  brought  into 
play  five  of  the  city  departments.  The  Department  of  Docks 
furnished  the  recreation  pier  at  the  foot  of  East  Twenty-fourth 
Street;  the  Department  of  Charities  enclosed  it  and  equipped 


12  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

it  with  cots  and  blankets ;  the  Fire  Department  heated  it  with 
stoves;  the  Police  Department  assigned  special  officers  to 
protect  the  lodgers  from  thefts  of  their  meager  clothing;  and 
most  important  of  all,  the  Street  Cleaning  Department  pro- 
vided work  at  collecting  garbage  and  shovelling  snow.  While 
it  was  widely  advertised  that  the  city  had  doubled  the  capacity 
of  its  lodging  facilities,  it  was  equally  well  advertised  that  the 
city  was  providing  work  for  the  able-bodied  men  who  applied, 
and  that  for  each  meal  and  each  night's  lodging  the  city 
would  exact  an  hour's  work  from  the  able-bodied. 

This  plan,  instead  of  attracting  larger  numbers  to  the  city's 
lodging  house,  apparently  drove  many  away  to  places  where 
they  could  get  their  food  and  lodging  absolutely  free.  The 
total  number  of  lodgings  for  the  fifteen  days  immediately 
following  the  opening  of  the  addition  on  the  Twenty- fourth 
Street  pier  was  1,919  less  than  the  total  nights'  lodgings  during 
the  fifteen  days  preceding.  While  the  number  of  beds  provided 
at  this  municipal  lodging  house  is  still  inadequate  to  meet  the 
abnormal  demand,  those  who  have  not  had  beds  have  been 
supplied  with  nourishing  food  and  with  shelter  quite  as  good 
for  this  purpose  as  would  be  furnished  in  churches  or  in 
armories.  Therefore  it  has  not  been  necessary  to  provide 
temporary  shelters  in  New  York,  although  in  some  cases  they 
have  been  opened. 

No  city  which  has  a  reasonably  well-regulated  department 
of  charities,  with  facilities  for  the  care  of  homeless  men  and 
women,  should  resort  to  temporary  free  shelters  and  free  food, 
until  the  regularly  organized  agencies  have  proven  their  inability 
to  cope  with  the  situation. 

Every  well-regulated  municipal  lodging  house  should  be 
prepared  to  make  a  thorough  examination  of  every  applicant 
for  food  and  shelter;  it  should  be  prepared  to  examine  the 
applicants  physically,  mentally,  and  socially;  it  should  be 
prepared  to  send  to  hospitals,  to  asylums,  to  farm  colonies,  or 
to  workhouses,  those  physically,  mentally,  and  morally  unfit 
to  engage  in  labor  or  to  hold  a  job;  it  should  be  prepared  to 
provide  labor  suited  to  the  physical  and  mental  capacity  of 
those  who  are  physically  and  mentally  fit,  and  so  far  as 
possible  to  provide  such  labor  before  meals  and  lodgings  are 
supplied,  except  in  the  case  of  those  who  are  evidently  too 
weak  or  too  tired  to  do  an  hour's  work. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  13 

This  means  that  there  should  be  connected  with  every  free 
lodging  house  an  industrial  plant  providing  a  variety  of  occu- 
pations, and  prepared  to  operate  twenty-four  hours  a  day  when 
the  demand  requires  it.  It  should  have  in  connection  with  it, 
or  working  in  close  cooperation  with  it,  an  employment  agency, 
through  which  an  endeavor  should  be  made  to  find,  if  possible, 
suitable  employment  for  those  fitted  for  it.  There  should  be 
attached  to  the  free  shelter,  or  in  close  cooperation  with  it,  a 
squad  of  special  officers,  with  police  powers,  to  apprehend 
mendicants,  vagrants,  tramps,  and  criminals  who  are  apt  to 
frequent  free  shelters  not  so  protected. 

This  "mendicancy  squad"  of  plain-clothes  men  should  serve 
not  only  as  a  guard  against  the  admission  of  this  class  to 
the  lodging  house,  but  as  a  guard  against  their  admission 
to  the  city ;  it  should  be  at  work  night  and  day  on  the  streets ; 
it  should  apprehend  every  beggar,  not  necessarily  as  a  criminal, 
but  it  should  apprehend  him,  offer  to  take  him  home,  if  he  has 
a  home  in  the  city,  or  offer  to  see  him  out  of  the  city  if  he 
has  a  home  elsewhere.  When  the  mendicancy  officer  reaches  the 
home  of  the  beggar,  he  should  investigate  the  conditions,  or 
cause  them  to  be  investigated,  and  in  cases  of  families,  should 
seek  the  cooperation  of  the  private  relief  societies  who  care  for 
families,  advising  the  offender  to  stop  his  street  begging  and  if 
need  be  apply  to  the  private  charities  or  to  the  Department 
of  Charities.  If  the  beggar  is  a  cripple,  or  blind,  or  otherwise 
disabled,  and  is  homeless,  he  should  be  taken  to  a  city  home 
or  to  some  other  suitable  institution.  If  the  beggar  is  merely 
a  vagrant  or  otherwise  delinquent,  he  should  be  taken  before  a 
magistrate,  and  in  case  of  first  offense  be  warned,  and  upon  a 
second  offense,  positively  committed  to  the  workhouse. 

Such  a  program  of  relief  as  the  one  outlined  above,  vigor- 
ously enforced,  surely  would  reduce  Unemployment  to  its  lowest 
denomination.  Such  a  program  has  been  in  operation  in  the 
city  of  Baltimore  during  the  past  year,  and  Baltimore  is  said 
to  be  the  only  large  city  in  the  country  which  has  been  free 
from  the  abnormal  conditions  experienced  in  other  cities  during 
the  past  winter.  It  has  had  no  bread  lines;  it  has  opened  no 
temporary  free  lodging  houses,  where  people  are  invited  to 
partake  of  free  food  and  free  beds  without  labor. 

The  problem  of  Unemployment  is  a  problem  of  relief  as 
well  as  a  problem  of  industry,  and  as  a  problem  of  relief  it 


14  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

should  be  handled  intelligently  and  discriminately.  Otherwise  it 
may  take  a  generation  for  a  community  to  recover  from  its 
mistakes.  But  Unemployment  is  also  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant problems  of  modern  industry  and  cannot  be  permanently 
solved  by  any  relief  or  other  palliative  measures.  It  is  a  big 
fundamental  problem  closely  related  to  other  social  and  eco- 
nomic problems,  whose  solution  involves  such  measures  as  the 
distribution  of  immigrants,  vocational  training,  vocational  guid- 
ance, and  proper  regulating  of  hours,  wages,  and  conditions  of 
labor. 

Moreover,  these  measures  are  intricately  bound  up  in  the 
problem  of  industrial  reorganization  and  readjustment,  which 
will  probably  require  years  for  substantial  realization.  They 
constitute  the  indirect  attack  upon  the  army  of  unemployed. 
There  are,  fortunately,  methods  of  direct  attack  likewise  quite 
fundamental  which  have  proven  their  value  in  foreign  coun- 
tries, and  some  of  which  have  already  taken  hold  of  certain 
of  the  more  progressive  American  communities.  These  methods 
represent  definite  constructive  measures,  aimed  primarily  at 
Unemployment  itself. 

Germany,  with  her  well-organized  system  of  labor  exchanges, 
is  bringing  the  manless  job  and  the  jobless  man  together. 
Likewise  England,  with  her  more  recently  established  chain  of 
labor  exchanges,  is  acquiring  a  fairly  definite  knowledge  of 
the  number  of  jobs  available;  of  their  nature  and  their  location; 
of  the  number  of  men  out  of  work;  of  the  kind  of  work  that 
they  can  perform.  Not  only  is  this  information  published,  but 
England  is  advancing  the  transportation  of  the  jobless  man  to 
the  manless  job.  Likewise  other  foreign  countries  have  pro- 
vided systems  of  insurance  against  Unemployment. 

Denmark  has  worked  out  a  very  successful  system  on  the 
contributory  basis,  the  members  of  the  union,  the  community, 
and  the  state  contributing  to  the  fund.  This  plan  is  now 
beyond  the  experimental  stage  and  has  been  developed  according 
to  scientific  principles.  Similar  progress  has  been  made  looking 
toward  the  regularization  of  employment  in  certain  so-called 
seasonal  industries.  In  England,  one  of  the  most  irregular  of 
occupations,  that  of  the  'longshoreman,  has  been  converted  into 
a  fairly  regular  employment.  Some  progress  in  this  direction 
has  been  made  in  the  United  States. 

Mr.   Louis   Brandeis,   who   has   said  that   irregular   employ- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  15 

ment  is  "the  worst  and  most  extended  of  industrial  evils,"  has 
undertaken  the  organization  of  certain  industries  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and,  it  is  claimed,  has  succeeded  in  practically  elimi- 
nating the  seasonal  aspects  of  the  shoe  industry  in  one  city. 
Other  more  or  less  successful  attempts  have  been  made  in  New 
York  City  and  elsewhere  to  regularize  the  seasonal  occupations. 

The  method  of  direct  attack,  then,  involves  the  three  follow- 
ing measures:  In  the  first  place,  employers  of  labor  should 
be  offered  some  additional  inducement  to  regularize  business, 
and  so  do  away  with  seasonal  fluctuations.  Second,  a  system  of 
labor  exchanges  involving  the  cooperation  of  a  chain  of  free 
employment  bureaus  established  in  various  municipalities  and 
states  should  be  inaugurated.  At  the  same  time,  the  private 
labor  bureaus  should  be  rigidly  supervised. 

The  third  step  in  dealing  with  this  problem,  says  John  B. 
Andrews,  secretary  of  the  American  Association  for  Labor 
Legislation,  "must  depend  in  a  large  degree  upon  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  first  and  second.  When  employers  have  done 
their  utmost  to  smooth  out  the  curve  of  employment,  when 
workers  have  been  trained  to  the  demands  of  industry,  and 
when  efficient  labor  exchanges  record  and  announce  and  direct 
throughout  the  nation  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide  of  employ- 
able labor,  there  will  still  remain  for  the  statesmen  of  our  land 
the  task  of  developing  a  just  and  economical  system  of  insur- 
ance for  those  who,  though  able  and  willing  to  work,  are  yet 
unable  to  find  it." 

It  is  not  enough,  therefore,  that  America  should  be  awake 
to  the  fact  that  she  has  a  large  army  of  unemployed.  She 
must  realize  the  urgent  necessity  of  meeting  the  situation  and 
of  instituting  adjustments  that  will  make  it  possible  for  her 
to  muster  and  make  self-sustaining  out  of  this  vast  unorganized 
and  perilous  throng  all  but  those  who  are  genuinely  incapaci- 
tated for  work — these  she  must  care  for  in  suitable  institutions 
in  an  intelligent  and  humane  manner. 


16  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

American  Magazine.     78:24-9.     December,  1914 

The  Golden  Rule  in  Business.    Ida  M.  Tarbell 

War  thrusts  a  sure  lance  into  a  nation's  weak  spots,  be 
that  nation  neutral  or  combatant.  Hardly  had  the  first  sound  of 
the  European  crash  reached  us  last  August  when  to  everybody's 
lips  sprang  the  horrified  comment,  "And  we  without  ships  1"  A 
peaceful  nation  unprepared  for  Peace! 

What  child's  play  suddenly  seemed  the  petty  politics  and  sel- 
fish greed  that  had  kept  us  so  long  unfit  to  take  our  place  in  the 
world's  commerce— we,  a  nation  with  a  frontage  of  many  hun- 
dred miles  on  each  of  the  two  great  oceans  of  the  globe!  With 
this  overwhelming  demonstration  of  our  crippled  state  before 
us  how  simple  it  was  for  our  quick-witted  President  to  persuade 
Congress  to  sweep  the  interfering  rubbish  out  of  the  way  and 
open  the  seas  to  us ! 

But  closed  seas  were  not  the  only  weakness,  the  European 
war  -disclosed  in  this  country.  As  quickly  we  were  face  to  face 
with  a  vast  out-of-work  throng — true  it  might  be  short-lived, 
but  again  it  might  not.  The  worst  of  it  was  we  had  no  plan  for 
handling  the  situation.  If  it  had  been  necessary  we  could  have 
promptly  raised  an  army  in  an  orderly,  well-thought-out  fashion. 
Individuals,  states,  the  federal  government  would  have  known 
the  immediate  and  logical  steps  to  take.  But  when  it  came  to 
the  greatest  business  of  peace  in  the  time  of  calamity — keeping 
men  and  women  at  work — nobody  knew  what  to  do,  unless  to 
contribute  to  a  soup  kitchen. 

There  were  employers  without  a  sense  that  patriotism  as 
well  as  policy  demanded  that  their  wheels  should  run ;  there  were 
communities  that  looked  apathetically  on  the  closing  of  factories, 
as  if  they  had  no  urgent  duty  in  the  matter.  States,  for  the 
most  part,  were  helpless :  so  was  the  federal  government.  Thus 
it  was  revealed  on  the  instant  that  there  is  in  this  country  no 
organization  for  handling  labor.  It  takes  care  of  itself,  groping 
hither  and  thither  as  instinct,  rumor,  hope,  greed  may  call.  When 
the  demoralization  of  panic,  disaster,  war,  comes  it  is  the  first 
to  feel  the  pinch,  for  industry,  like  money,  is  a  natural  coward. 
In  times  of  trouble  it  seeks  a  hiding  place. 

Money  is  learning  its  lesson.  Perhaps  this  country  never 
saw  a  more  perfect  demonstration  of  the  wisdom  of  keeping 


UNEMPLOYMENT  17 

at  a  hard  problem  until  mastered  than  it  had  last  August  when 
banks,  stock  exchanges  and  clearing  houses,  falling  into  line 
behind  the  federal  government,  promptly  put  into  operation  the 
machinery  developed  in  the  past  few  years  of  bitter  fighting  for 
the  proper  control  of  money.  There  were  all  the  elements  for 
a  panic  in  the  situation.  But  there  was  no  panic.  Speculation, 
exploitation,  hoarding,  all  were  stopped.  There  was  money 
ready  for  every  necessary  undertaking. 

What  we  need  is  a  similar  cooperative  organization  for 
handling  labor.  Men  pooh-pooh  the  idea.  They  tell  us  the  un- 
employed have  always  been  with  us,  and  always  must  be.  It  is  the 
oldest  reason  in  the  world  for  tolerating  injustice  and  misery. 
Unemployment  is  no  more  necessary  than  war.  It  may  be  as 
difficult  to  overcome,  but  that  is  another  question.  It  is  no 
more  an  untouched  problem  than  is  putting1  an  end  to  war.  Nor 
is  it  a  problem  which  it  takes  a  war  to  thrust  in  our  faces.  We 
have  it  with  us  more  or  less  all  the  time,  though  its  exact  terms 
no  man  can  tell.  Like  many  things  which  the  world  has  agreed 
must  always  be  with  us  it  has  been  thought  best  to  know  as  little 
as  possible  of  the  unpleasant  truths  of  the  unemployed.  Figures 
are  loose  and  disputed.  During  the  painful  agitation  in  New  York 
City  last  winter  it  was  claimed  that  there  were  300,000  men 
and  women  walking  the  streets  vainly  seeking  work — but  the 
New  York  commissioner  of  labor  declared  he  did  not  believe 
there  were  that  many  unemployed  in  the  state.  Wherever  there 
are  certain  figures  they  are  large.  In  Massachusetts  the  labor 
organizations  keep  the  state  labor  bureau  informed  of  the  per- 
centage of  Unemployment  among  their  members.  At  the  end 
of  last  March,  12  per  cent  of  the  173,000  members  reporting  were 
idle.  William  Leiserson,  the  secretary  of  the  Wisconsin  free  em- 
ployment offices,  said  that  last  fall  in  that  state  there  were  250 
applicants  for  every  100  jobs.  The  Charity  Organization  Society 
of  Buffalo,  New  York,  declared  that  there  were  10,000  men 
idle  in  that  town  last  spring;  another  agency  in  touch  with  the 
situation  doubled  the  number.  In  Kansas  City  at  the  same  time 
25  per  cent  of  the  union  men  were  reported  idle — and  so  it 
went  all  over  the  country. 

But  if  we  use  these  figures  let  it  be  with  discrimination:  If 
there  really  were  300,000  idle  in  New  York  City  last  winter,  it 
does  not  follow  that  there  were  300,000  fit  and  willing  to  work 
who  could  not  find  work.  A  large  percentage  always  of  those 


i8  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

who  are  numbered  with  the  unemployed  do  not  belong,  strictly 
speaking,  in  the  problem.  There  are  always  a  considerable 
number  who  detest  work  and  who  will  not  stick  to  it  for  longer 
than  a  few  days  at  a  time.  There  are  the  old,  the  unfit,  the 
untrained.  These  are  serious  special  problems  not  to  be  con- 
sidered here.  In  New  York  last  winter  there  was  a  conspicuous 
group  known  popularly  as  the  "I  Won't  Works."  They  were 
there  to  advertise,  at  the  top  of  their  lungs  and  by  all  the 
ingenious  tricks  they  could  devise,  what  a  poor  stick  industry 
as  we  know  it  now  is,  and  to  offer  a  substitute.  It  was  pro- 
paganda, and  very  effective  propaganda,  the  I.  W.  W.  did  last 
winter  for  their  particular  panacea;  but  they  could  hardly  be 
numbered  among  the  legitimate  unemployed. 

Another  class  of  unemployed  which  should  be  dropped  out 
of  the  problem — at  least  as  we  are  considering  it  here — are 
those  who  have  pulled  up  stakes  and  are  seeking  to  better  them- 
selves. New  York  always  has  a  large  contingent  of  this  kind; 
the  new-come  immigrant  swells  it  sometimes  to  huge  proportions. 
In  the  year  ending  June,  1914,  over  1,218,000  men,  women,  and 
children  migrated  to  this  country.  That  immigrants  to  the 
United  States  have  almost  sure  chances,  history  has  shown. 
Our  absorption  of  them  is  the  most  amazing  phenomenon  in  the 
transmigration  of  peoples.  Nevertheless,  it  invariably  requires 
months,  if  not  years,  for  each  one  of  these  newcomers  to  find 
the  thing  that  he  best  can  do.  The  undigested  mass — those  who 
have  made  their  plunge  and  are  still  struggling  and  spluttering 
on  the  surface  without  any  idea  which  way  to  swim — are  not 
included  here  in  the  problem. 

Those  who  really  do  come  under  the  head  are  those  who, 
having  once  had  a  foothold  on  the  labor  ladder,  find  them- 
selves pushed  or  forced  to  jump  off.  When  men  and  women 
have  once  been  accepted  as  useful  in  the  labor  market,  why  are 
they  not  kept  busy?  That  is  a  question  that  scores  of  em- 
ployers as  well  as  public  men  and  students  of  social  conditions 
have  been  asking  themselves  for  a  long  time.  Their  attempts 
to  answer  the  question  have  come  to  a  point  where  if  they  did 
not  form  a  program  at  least  they  form  the  planks  of  one.  It 
is  the  employer  who  is  going  about  his  business,  fired  with  ideals 
and  ideas,  that  has  touched  the  bottom  of  this  problem,  finding 
the  point  both  of  surest  prevention  and  correction.  He  has 
found  it  in  this  case — as  in  almost  every  other — by  throwing 


UNEMPLOYMENT  19 

over  entirely  the  business  principles  and  practices  upon  which 
he  was  once  acting. 

"  What  is  the  first  operation  of  the  old-fashioned  employer, 
face  to  face  with  business  disturbances  and  disaster?  Why, 
to  take  to  cover  by  shutting  down.  Just  as  low  wages  and  long 
hours  have  been  accepted  as  the  surest  way  of  producing  at  a 
low  cost,  so  stopping  business  entirely  in  dull  or  disastrous  times 
has  been  considered  the  best  economy.  The  old-fashioned  em- 
ployer not  only  stopped,  but  he  stopped  practically  without  a 
warning.  All  over  this  country  in  the  last  year  thousands  of 
men  and  women,  living  on  a  moderate  weekly  wage,  have  learned 
on  Saturday  night  that  they  would  not  be  needed  for  work  on 
Monday  morning. 

One  of  our  great  railway  systems  suddenly  discharged  an 
unusually  large  number  of  men  last  spring.  To  most  of  these 
practically  no  warning1  was  given.  An  investigator  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  in  one  of  the  states  served  by  this  railway  tells 
me  that  many  of  the  discharged  men  were  requested  to  leave 
their  shanties  before  the  period  for  which  they  had  rented  them 
had  expired.  It  would  be  simple  to  pile  up  illustrations  of  this 
sort.  To  the  new  spirit  in  industry  this  policy  is  not  only 
brutal,  it  is  the  worst  of  economic  folly ;  a  proof  that  a  man  does 
not  really  know  his  business. 

Based  as  Golden  Rule  business  is,  on  a  belief  in  a  man,  it 
aims  at  once  to  train  him  in  the  best  possible  way  of  doing  his 
task.  This  man,  because  of  his  training,  becomes  an  investment. 
He  cannot  be  thrown  away  in  a  moment  of  panic.  His  worth 
is  his  protection.  This  is  the  theory.  How  is  it  applied  by 
those  who  are  accepting  it?  How  is  it  applied  by  them  in 
seasonal  trade,  that  is,  in  those  industries  where  the  orders 
pile  up  in  one  month  and  fall  flat  in  anotner?  I  have  sought 
for  answers  in  various  quarters,  and  the  completest  I  have  had 
come  from  the  manager  of  the  Plimpton  Press  at  Norwood, 
Massachusetts,  Mr.  Henry  P.  Kendall. 

The  Norwood  Press  publishes  school  books  chiefly.  "School 
book  publishers,"  says  Mr.  Kendall,  "place  the  bulk  of  their 
orders  in  June,  July,  and  August,  with  more  or  less  rush  work 
in  September.  This  is  due  very  largely  to  the  fact  that  school 
boards  make  their  adoptions  for  both  state,  country,  and  town, 
in  June,  for  the  succeeding  school  year.  The  publishers  for  this 
reason  are  unable  to  anticipate  with  much  accuracy  what  their 


20  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

requirements  will  be  until  they  have  received  word  of  the 
adoptions.  Furthermore,  there  is  so  much  red  tape  connected 
with  state,  county,  city,  and  town  accounting  that  the  pub- 
lishers do  not  receive  their  money  very  promptly :  and  it  ties  up 
a  very  considerable  amount  of  capital  to  manufacture  books  and 
carry  them  in  stock  during  the  dull  period,  which  is  December, 
January,  and  February,  and  hold  these  books  for  delivery  in  the 
summer,  to  be  sold  and  paid  for  very  late  in  the  following  fall." 

Here,  then,  is  a  condition  quite  outside  of  the  industry  itself 
making  mischief  for  hundreds  of  men  and  women.  The  Plimp- 
ton Press  believes  this  can  and  should  be  corrected  by  those  re- 
sponsible, and  is  using  every  effort,  financial  and  otherwise,  to 
get  the  publishers  dealing  with  them  to  anticipate  their  orders 
and  to  make  it  of  financial  advantage  to  them  to  manufacture 
as  much  as  possible  during  the  winter  or  dull  months. 

Almost  every  industry  has  some  similar  outside  condition 
holding  it  up  in  one  season,  driving  it  in  another  to  the  conse- 
quent demoralization  of  its  force.  The  Clothcraft  Shop  of  Cleve- 
land, Ohio,  for  instance,  finds  that  an  outside  condition  which 
hampers  it  in  its  efforts  to  give  regular  employment  is  the 
practice  of  many  mills  of  holding  up  the  delivery  of  orders  for 
cloth  for  two  and  three  months.  This  works  two  evils  to  the 
maker  of  clothes:  it  prevents  proper  inspection  of  the  cloth,  the 
manufacturer  being  forced,  if  he  is  to  catch  the  market,  to  make 
up  what  he  would  otherwise  reject,  and  it  forces  him  to  close 
or  work  on  half  time  in  one  month,  on  overtime  others.  Mr. 
Richard  Feiss,  the  manager  of  the  Clothcraft  Shop,  believes  that 
such  a  situation  could  be  corrected  by  the  clothiers'  trade  asso- 
ciations. Their  great  business,  he  contends,  is  to  standardize 
trade  conditions.  To  enable  enterprising  manufacturers  to  antici- 
pate a  season's  demand  he  would  have  them  establish  a  standard 
scale  of  sizes.  Mr.  Feiss  himself  has  overcome  largely  the  fluctu- 
ation in  the  trade  by  pushing  a  line  of  staple  goods.  The  factory 
is  kept  busy  on  these  many  days  between  seasons,  when  other- 
wise it  would  be  idle.  This,  of  course,  requires  close  and  intelli- 
gent study  of  the  market  and  complete  cooperation  between  the 
purchasing,  the  sales,  and  the  manufacturing  departments,  but 
this  is  exactly  what  one  gets  in  a  thorough  application  of  the 
principle  of  scientific  management  such  as  has  been  made  in  the 
Clothcraft  Shop. 

At  the  Plimpton  Press  Mr.  Kendall  has  proved  that  regular 


UNEMPLOYMENT  21 

work  is  much  more  possible  if  the  worker  can  do  more  than  one 
thing:  which  stands  to  reason.  In  the  dull  months  he  trains 
every  employee,  as  far  as  possible,  to  do  at  least  one,  and,  if 
practical,  two  other  kinds  of  work  of  equal  grade  and  in  depart- 
ments which  are  least  likely  to  be  congested  at  the  same  time. 
"This  will  mean,"  he  says,  "if  there  is  a  congestion  of  pasting, 
we  can  muster  girls  from  goldlaying,  sewing  or  other  kinds  of 
work  to  the  pasting  department,  so  that  in  this  department  those 
who  might  be  short  of  work  at  that  time  will  get  more  steady 
employment  and  will  have  a  greater  variety  to  their  work." 

There  are  two  by-products  of  this  effort  which  are  most 
valuable:  one  is  showing  how  the  monotony  of  labor  can  be 
broken,  and  how  good  and  inspiriting  it  is  to  break  it — something 
the  average  laborer  must  learn  by  experience;  the  other  is  the 
democratization  of  labor  in  the  shop.  There  is  no  place  in  the 
world — outside  of  diplomatic  circles  and  provincial  towns — where 
caste  lines  are  more  severely  drawn  than  among  the  girls  in 
factories  and  shops.  Treat  each  task  as  a  skilled  operation, 
train  the  girl  to  different  tasks  and  the  common  contempt  for 
certain  forms  of  work  will  largely  disappear.  Mr.  Kendall  tells 
me  there  are  girls  in  the  clerical  department  of  the  Plimpton 
Press  that  gladly  take  a  machine  in  dull  times.  Sometimes 
he  has  had  girls  give  up  their  tasks  to  take  machines.  Nobody 
despises  any  task  there  for  the  reason  that  scientific  management 
has  made  each  respect  it.  » 

This  variety  in  labor  for  which  Mr.  Kendall  strives  is  a 
variation  of  what  Mr.  Henry  Ford  included  in  his  exciting 
schemes  of  improving  and  regulating  the  conditions  of  working- 
men  in  his  automobile  shop.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Mr. 
Ford  proposed,  in  case  of  dull  times,  to  find  places  on  farms 
for  the  men  laid  off.  Organized  cooperation  between  manu- 
facturers, farmers,  and  gardeners  is  a  practical  measure  capable 
of  absorbing  an  enormous  mass  of  unemployed.  I  have  seen  it 
practiced  by  individual  workers  with  success.  I  have  in  mind 
a  skilled  fur  worker  who  for  four  to  five  months  of  the  year 
earns  from  four  to  six  dollars  a  day  and  nothing  the  rest  of  the 
year.  He  has  a  large  family.  Eight  years  ago  he  bought  an 
abandoned  farm  in  Connecticut.  All  year  round  that  farm  gives 
a  comfortable,  roomy  house  to  his  family,  fuel,  fresh  eggs,  milk, 
vegetables,  a  horse.  The  children  are  growing  up  strong  and 


22  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

decent.  In  dull  seasons  the  fur  worker  himself  is  slowly  restor- 
ing his  land  and  always  keeping  himself  fit. 

There  are  many  minor  devices  practiced  by  enlightened  em- 
ployers to  piece  out  work.  When  the  vacation  is  recognized  as 
an  employee's  due,  it  is  adjusted  so  as  to  help  regularize  employ- 
ment. Piling  up  standard  stocks  and  putting  a  plant  in  order 
may  help  a  little,  but  they  can  do  but  little.  A  factory  frequently 
must  come  to  short  time.  There  are  many  experiments  making 
in  handling  short  time  to  the  best  advantage.  The  ideal  way  is 
by  thorough  cooperation  of  men  and  managers.  If  the  conditions 
that  make  short  time  necessary  are  put  frankly  to  a  force  there 
is  little  danger  that  they  will  not  come  up  generously  and  bravely 
to  the  need.  It  is  the  stupid  practice  of  keeping  the  working 
force  utterly  in  the  dark  about  the  shop,  its  aims,  its  successes 
and  failures,  that  prevents  cooperation.  Short  time  often  is 
handled  admirably  by  the  laborers.  Thus,  in  the  bituminous  coal 
fields  it  frequently  happens  that  when  a  mine  is  closed  down  the 
men  in  a  neighboring  mine  will  voluntarily  divide  their  work. 

It  can  be  laid  down,  I  think,  as  a  fact  that  no  employer  oper- 
ating under  the  new  code  lays  off  an  employee  without  proper 
notice.  When  legislatures  get  around  to  the  point  of  making  this 
illegal  they  will  find  plenty  of  successful  employers  to  back  them 
up.  Mr.  Kendall  goes  further.  He  thinks  it  part  of  his  business 
to  aid  those  whom  he  has  to  send  away  to  find  other  positions. 
He  does  this  by  making  it  known  to  competitors  and  others  in 
the  trade  that  he  is  glad  to  supply  employees  when  he  can  spare 
them.  The  employment  department  of  the  Press  also  has  tried 
to  work  out  some  kind  of  a  reciprocal  plan  with  Filene's  depart- 
ment store  in  Boston,  by  which  girls  could  be  taken  on  as  shop 
girls  during  the  holiday  rushes,  which  as  a  rule  are  the  dull  times 
of  the  Plimpton  Press. 

The  employment  department  also  arranges  that  girls  who 
live  at  home,  and  are  not  wholly  dependent  on  what  they  earn 
for  support,  are  laid  off  in  preference  to  girls  who  are  wholly 
dependent  on  their  own  efforts  for  support,  or  have  others  in 
their  family  dependent  on  them.  This  applies  to  the  men  as  well. 
That  is,  single  men  are  laid  off  in  preference  to  married  men. 

Efforts  like  these  of  Mr.  Kendall  may  be  developed  to  handle 
satisfactorily  a  force  of  a  few  hundred;  but  when  it  comes  to 
handling  the  thousands  which  are  thrown  into  the  labor  market 
by  the  closing  of  the  lumber  or  the  harvesting  or  ice-cutting 


UNEMPLOYMENT  23 

seasons,  by  the  failure  of  great  mills,  or  even  by  the  sudden 
bottling  up  of  commerce,  as  happened  last  summer,  they  are 
utterly  inadequate. 

Is  the  employer,  then,  free  of 'responsibility?  He  certainly  is 
not  under  the  new  code.  He  now  becomes  a  partner  in  public 
efforts,  which  should  begin  at  home.  What  are  these  working 
people?  They  are  the  mass  of  a  town's  consumers.  Turn  them 
out,  and  houses  empty,  shops  decline  or  close — the  whole  machin- 
ery of  the  place  begins  to  rust.  It  is  to  the  advantage  of  a  town 
to  cooperate  in  every  way  with  employers  to  take  care  of  those 
laid  off.  Can't  be  done?  It  is  done;  not  by  "making  work,"  that 
is,  faking  tasks,  but  by  considering  what  necessary  public  work 
the  town  can  afford  and  by  making  a  contract  with  the  idle  to 
undertake  it. 

Listen  to  what  the  town  of  Duluth  did  last  winter:  Soon 
after  Christmas  it  found  itself  with  a  more  than  usually  large 
number  of  unemployed  men  on  hand.  They  have  a  commission 
form  of  government  in  Duluth,  and  the  commissioners,  being  free 
to  do  promptly  the  thing  that  needed  to  be  done,  concluded  to 
test  the  matter  of  constructing  sewers  in  the  winter  instead  of 
in  spring  and  summer,  as  had  always  been  the  practice.  The  men 
who  were  able  to  do  digging  were  put  to  work  the  first  of  Feb- 
ruary. Employment  was  given  to  all  who  applied,  who  were  able 
to  do  what  was  considered  a  day's  work.  The  commissioners 
were  very  square  with  the  town,  refusing  absolutely  to  take  men 
who  were  just  out  of  the  hospital  or  those  that  they  found  on 
trial  were  inefficient.  That,  they  argued,  would  be  charity,  and 
they  had  no  right  to  assess  taxpayers  for  charity.  By  the  first  of 
June  a  mile  of  sewer  had  been  constructed.  The  work  was  so 
satisfactory  that  it  has  been  decided  to  continue  the  sewer  con- 
struction the  coming  winter.  And  how  much  Duluth  has  gained ! 
She  has  kept  a  body  of  consumers,  kept  her  houses  full,  kept  her 
shops  going,  kept  faith  with  her  own  sense  of  responsibility. 

It  is  idle  ever  to  say  there  is  no  work  to  be  done.  To  such  as 
plead  this  let  me  call  attention  to  the  case  of  Pauly  of  Seattle. 
The  story  was  told  by  Pauly  himself  at  the  Federal  Industrial 
Commission  hearing  at  Seattle  last  August:  I  quote  the  report 
of  one  who  heard  him. 

Pauly  is  an  unskilled  itinerant  laborer.  He  has  worked  in 
lumber  camps  and  on  railroad  construction.  He  told  of  some  of 
his  experiences,  which  he  said  were  typical  of  what  the  itinerant 


24  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

laborer  faces  as  a  regular  thing.  He  was  sent  from  Seattle  to 
Montana  last  year,  along  with  crowds  of  other  workmen,,  in  a 
single  railway  coach.  He  stated  they  traveled  for  two  days  in 
this  coach,  without  water,  and  crowded  so  thick  in  the  car  that 
there  were  not  seats  for  all,  or  even  opportunity  for  the  men  in 
the  aisle  to  sit  down  on  the  floor.  When  they  arrived  at  their 
destination,  he  said,  he  found  400  hungry  men  along  the  right-of- 
way  of  the  railroad,  with  no  provision  for  their  comfort  and 
no  work  for  them  to  do.  Later  he  was  taken,  along  with  others, 
to  a  point  some  distance  away  and  offered  work  where  a  strike 
was  in  progress.  In  order  to  get  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  he 
was  obliged  to  go  to  work  at  this  place. 

Last  winter,  when  Unemployment  was  at  its  worst  in  Seattle, 
Pauly  organized  the  unemployed  into  "The  Itinerants'  Labor 
Union"  or  "The  Hoboes'  Union  of  America."  He  secured  an  old 
hospital  building,  for  which  the  Central  Labor  Council  agreed  to 
pay  the  rent,  and  opened  it  up  as  a  lodging  house  for  the  unem- 
ployed. The  scheme  was  ridiculed  and  the  building  facetiously 
dubbed  "The  Hotel  de  Gink."  Pauly  was  determined,  however, 
in  spite  of  opposition,  that  he  would  find  a  way  of  tiding  these 
men  over.  He  advertised  for  work.  He  sent  squads  of  men  out 
to  clean  up  vacant  lots.  For  others  he  got  work  at  the  commis- 
sion houses,  where  they  sorted  potatoes  and  took  in  payment 
"seconds,"  which  the  men  carried  back  to  their  lodgings.  He 
sent  out  also  squads  of  men  to  clean  up  the  butcher  shops  and 
markets,  whenever  he  found  opportunity,  and  took  the  second 
cuts  of  meat  in  payment. 

In  the  same  way  he  got  the  bakeries  to  supply  him  with  stale 
bread.  Where  an  old  building  was  being  torn  down,  he  got  an 
opportunity  to  cart  off  the  lumber  that  was  not  usable;  in  this 
way  he  supplied  the  house  with  fuel  during  the  winter.  As  soon 
as  it  was  possible  he  began  to  get  contracts  for  clearing  stump 
land.  People  said  that  the  unemployed  did  not  want  work. 
Pauly  sent  a  gang  of  men  out  to  clear  some  land  who  worked 
more  than  a  month  in  the  rainy  season  absolutely  without  shelter. 
Pauly  would  not  admit  to  the  place  any  man  who  was  unwilling 
to  work,  and  yet  in  Seattle  he  cared  for  more  than  two  thousand 
men  during  the  winter.  There  were  hold-ups  around  Seattle, 
and  it  was  supposed  that  Pauly's  men  were  implicated,  where- 
upon Pauly  showed  that  his  men  must  be  in  the  house  at  10.30, 
and  his  books  always  showed  whether  they  were  or  not.  To 


UNEMPLOYMENT  25 

make  doubly  sure,  he  called  in  the  police  without  warning,  and 
had  them  "frisk"  every  lodger  in  the  building.  Not  as  much  as 
a  penknife  was  found  that  did  not  belong  there.  Pauly  had 
visions  now  of  getting  his  men  permanently  onto  the  land.  He 
hopes  to  get  a  contract  for  clearing  land,  where  plots  of  land 
may  be  taken  in  payment.  "That's  the  thing  that  will  settle  this 
employment  question,"  says  Pauly,  "and  settle  it  for  all  time." 

A  quick  turn  in  handling  Unemployment  was  made  last  Sep- 
tember in  New  York  City  by  the  women  at  the  head  of  what  is 
known  as  the  Vacation  Committee,  an  organization  which  en- 
deavors to  meet  various  needs  of  working  women.  It  illustrates 
admirably  what  organizations  of  all  sorts  might  do  to  take  care 
of  a  sudden  influx  of  unemployed.  The  war  threw  many  women, 
particularly  stenographers,  clerks,  saleswomen,  out  of  positions. 
As  soon  as  the  Vacation  Committee  saw  the  situation  it  decided 
to  open  a  free  employment  bureau.  It  did  not  stop  to  consider 
how  to  organize;  it  simply  opened  the  office;  sent  letters  broad- 
cast among  the  employers  that  the  Committee  was  going  to  do 
what  it  could  to  place  the  women  who  came  to  it,  and  asked 
cooperation.  In  the  first  week  it  placed  50  out  of  150  applicants. 

But  the  sight  of  so  many  applicants  whom  they  could  not 
place  was  too  much  for  the  Committee.  "Let  us  give  them  work," 
somebody  said.  "Why  not  set  them  to  making  garments  for  the 
wounded  soldiers,  paying  them  50  cents  a  day  until  we  can  find 
places  for  them?"  This  was  done  almost  as  quickly  as  thought 
of.  The  girls  belonging  to  the  Association  who  were  at  work, 
rallied  valiantly  to  the  enterprise,  and  in  their  first  meeting, 
after  the  idea  was  launched,  subscribed  $36  toward  the  new 
undertaking. 

In  other  quarters  there  was  encouragement.  When  I  visited 
the  scene  of  the  activities  two  weeks  after  they  were  inaugurated 
I  found  the  leaders  choosing  Canton  flannel,  of  which  a  manu- 
facturer had  just  promised  them  a  thousand  yards,  while  in  the 
ante-room  was  a  man  of  large  wealth,  who  had  come  in  to  offer 
his  time  and  his  money ! 

But  the  problem  of  Unemployment,  particularly  as  it  stands 
now,  is  frequently  too  great  to  be  handled  by  the  most  enlight- 
ened employers  cooperating  with  the  most  willing  town.  The 
only  agency  to  which  the  employers  can  turn,  with  any  confidence 
that  those  he  is  discharging  will  be  rapidly  placed,  is  the  new 
Free  Public  Employment  Bureau,  which  is  coming  into  existence. 


26  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

Survey.    31:136-8.    November  i,  1913 

The  Drifters :  Unemployment  Problem  of  the  Southwest. 
Leon  Stern 

Eight  relief  organizations  in  Texas,  six  in  lower  California, 
one  each  in  Oklahoma,  Arizona,  Louisiana,  and  Arkansas,  to- 
gether with  settlement  houses  in  eight  cities,  comprise  the  list 
of  active  social  agencies  in  the  Southwest.  From  Arkansas  be- 
low the  color  line  and  from  the  Mississippi  west  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean  these  represent  the  few  isolated  groups  of  thoughtful 
people  who  are  trying  to  cope  with  problems  which  are  a  by- 
product of  the  development  and  colonization  of  this  region. 

In  this  stretch  of  country  there  are  not,  as  in  the  East,  those 
strings  of  towns  and  well-populated  rural  areas  connecting  big 
cities  and  acting  as  conductors  of  social  consciousness.  Agri- 
cultural districts  are  not  conscious  of  the  need  for  cooperation 
with  each  other,  and  their  local  problems  being  few  they  have 
no  local  agencies  which  might  serve  as  connecting  links,  while 
problems  coming  from  the  outside  are  considered  foreign  and  are 
readily  shifted.  In  Texas,  for  instance,  nineteen  towns,  which 
could  do  excellent  work  as  cooperating  centers,  are  without  any 
medium  for  "confidential  exchange." 

A  big  common  problem  throughout  this  area  is  the  drifter. 
As  in  the  old  days  in  the  East,  he  is  "passed  on."  But  unlike 
the  drifter  in  the  East,  he  is  often  a  worker,  and  is  passed  on 
because  there  is  the  feeling  that  in  this  country  of  abounding 
prosperity  there  is  a  chance  for  everyone,  and  he,  too,  will  find 
his  opportunity  perhaps  in  the  next  town. 

The  vagrant  and  the  hobo  are  more  seldom  seen  than  in  the 
East,  except  in  Texas — an  oasis  in  a  "dry"  desert  where  occa- 
sionally they  come  to  spend  for  drink  money  obtained  elsewhere. 
New  Orleans  also  is  choice  camping  ground  for  the  tramp, 
ranking  second  to  New  York;  it  was  there  that  the  hoboes'  na- 
tional convention  was  held  this  year.  In  the  West  as  in  the  East 
this  class  show  great  ingenuity  in  their  methods  of  "getting 
around"  the  benevolent  public.  Witness  one  of  the  fraternity 
who,  beating  his  way  back  East,  recited  a  tale  of  many  wander- 
ings, arousing  the  compassion  of  the  kind-hearted  by  spreading 
open  his  mouth  with  thumb  and  forefinger  to  show  empty  gums 


UNEMPLOYMENT  27 

which,  he  said,  had  once  held  gold  teeth  that  he  pawned  to  get 
from  California  to  Houston. 

The  characteristic  drifter  of  the  Southwest,  however,  is  the 
work-seeker,  who  is  either  an  agricultural  laborer,  or  a  sick  man 
searching  for  light  work.  During  a  good  crop  season,  agricul- 
tural laborers  in  Oklahoma  "ride  the  rods"  from  crop  to  crop, 
from  county  to  county. 

Sometimes  in  bad  seasons  they  cover  in  this  way  more  than 
two  hundred  miles.  In  eastern  Oklahoma  I  met  agricultural 
laborers  who  knew  all  the  towns  in  that  part  of  the  state,  and 
others  who  had  been  in  every  big  town  within  a  swing  of  300 
miles  in  and  out  of  the  state.  Occasionally,  not  being  able  to 
work  the  swing  back,  one  finds  himself  far  from  home  and 
moneyless,  and  drifts  to  the  nearest  main-line  railroad  town  to 
work  for  his  fare  home. 

Sometimes  a  man  drifts  from  state  to  state.  At  Wister,  Okla., 
I  met  a  man  who  had  worked  his  way  from  the  apple  country  in 
Arkansas  to  the  "apple  ranches  in  northern  California,  and  was 
then  making  a  return  trip.  In  times  of  wide-extended  drought, 
or  at  seasons'  ends,  the  agricultural  drifters'  problems  become 
very  serious.  Among  these  working  wanderers  there  is  a  shiftless 
group  that  cares  to  work  only  intermittently,  often  earning  less 
than  enough  for  keep. 

In  Arkansas  they  usually  drift  in  families  and  are  known  as 
"travelers."  At  night  they  camp  in  the  timber,  using  the  fence 
rails  for  fire-wood,  and  their  children  beg  milk  and  bread.  A 
few  have  money  and  shrewdly  sell  bits  of  property  which  they 
buy  while  "traveling."  In  Oklahoma  they  are  called  "tent- 
farmers,"  paying  the  Indians  for  the  right  to  settle  temporarily. 
They  plant  quick  crops  on  their  lands,  and  set  up  a  tent  to  live  in. 
The  immigrant  agricultural  laborer  constitutes  a  special  prob- 
lem, for  he  will  not  remain  long  at  any  work  which  is  not 
among  his  own  people,  though  their  settlements  are  long  distances 
apart.  The  two  most  prosperous  Italian  agricultural  colonies, 
for  instance,  are  more  than  five  hundred  miles  apart,  one  near 
New  Orleans,  and  the  other  near  Bryan,  Texas.  Of  Lithuanian 
agricultural  colonies,  one  is  at  Stuttgart,  Ark.,  and  the  other  at 
Dobbin,  near  Houston,  Texas. 

No  small  proportion  of  these  drifting  agricultural  workers 
have  been  attracted  from  the  middle  West  and  the  East  by  the 
widespread  advertisements  of  the  fertility  of  the  soil  by  rail- 


28  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

roads  and  commercial  clubs.  Some  railroads  plant  specimen 
crops  along  their  lines  to  show  what  the  land  through  which  they 
pass  has  to  offer.  Such  expedients  though  meant  to  attract  the 
colonist  who  can  invest,  also  draws  laborers,  immigrants  among 
them,  who  have  nothing  but  their  work  to  offer. 

The  problem  of  the  industrial  worker  who  follows  in  the  wake 
of  new  development  whether  it  be  a  new  discovery  of  oil  in 
eastern  Oklahoma,  or  the  establishment  of  an  industry  in  Texas, 
is  oftener  than  with  the  agricultural  laborer  one  of  maladjust- 
ment since  he  usually  comes  from  a  mill  town  to  a  country  whose 
industries  are  the  outgrowth  of  its  agriculture. 

The  chief  industrial  centers  of  the  Southwest  lie  between 
Little  Rock  and  San  Antonio,  some  twelve  cities  in  all,  besides 
the  railroad-shop  towns.  San  Antonio  has  an  abundant  labor 
supply  made  up  of  Mexicans  and  tubercular  persons  in  the  first 
stages;  Galveston  and  New  Orleans  have  nothing  to  offer  but 
longshore- work.  New  Orleans,  which  is  outside  of  this  industrial 
strip,  has  only  longshore-work.  Except  for  these  twelve  centers 
the  country  is  an  industrial  desert,  reaching  to  Los  Angeles  in 
one  direction,  in  others  to  Kansas  City,  Denver  or  St.  Louis. 
Dallas,  with  a  population  of  92,104,  is  its  center  and  within  a 
hundred  mile  radius  of  that  town  is  40  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Texas  and  35  per  cent  of  the  entire  real  property  in  the 
state. 

Drawing  three  circles  about  Dallas  with  radii  of  200,  300, 
and  600  miles,  the  small  industrial  and  railroad  shop  towns  of 
which  none  except  Fort  Worth  approaches  Dallas  in  population 
or  output,  will  be  found  in  the  first  circle;  the  industrial  towns 
approaching  Dallas  in  importance  and  size  are  within  the  second 
circle  and  are  situated  far  apart  at  the  cardinal  points  of  the 
compass ;  and  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  third  circle  which  extends 
beyond  the  borders  of  the  Southwest  are  the  big  industrial  cities 
of  the  middle  West.  A  search  for  work  in  this  territory  follows 
a  zigzag  route  stretching  over  as  great  a  distance  as  from  Okla- 
homa to  Lake  Michigan. 

Such  a  search  for  work  is  usually  made  without  guide  other 
than  the  legends  of  prosperity  or  the  conjectures  of  fellow  work- 
seekers.  Some  friend  or  relative  has  gone  before  or  the  drifter 
has  simply  sifted  mentally  the  various  opportunities  and  makes 
up  his  mind  that  a  particular  city  will  prove  his  El  Dorado.  He 
enters  the  country  via  Chicago-Kansas  City,  St.  Louis-Kansas 


UNEMPLOYMENT  29 

City  or  comes  direct  from  the  East  by  way  of  St.  Louis.  Some 
few  come  direct  from  New  York  in  the  steerage  of  the  coast 
lines  via  Galveston  and  New  Orleans.  None  that  I  met  came 
through  Memphis.  Their  goals  are  usually  Dallas,  Fort  Worth, 
Houston,  or  Los  Angeles,  but  reality  is  colder  than  the  glowing 
promises  of  the  boomer. 

Pamphlets,  booklets,  signs  and  slogans  of  the  boom  cities 
attract  the  eye  of  the  colonist.  Every  city  lights  a  cresset  for  the 
man  within  seeing  distance  and  calls  to  the  man  within  earshot. 
Des  Moines  in  the  North  advertises  itself  "your  opportunity"  in 
a  corner  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post;  Houston  in  the  South- 
west is  not  content  with  so  little  space.  Galveston  says  of  itself 
that  it  is  the  "Treasure  Island,  growing  greater,  grander  every 
day."  Little  Orange  on  the  Sabine  River  greets  the  traveler  with 
a  sign-board  at  the  station  which  declares  that  it  is  the  "Gateway 
to  Texas."  A  pocket  map  giving  the  population  of  Tulsa,  Okla., 
as  18,182  in  1910,  bears  on  the  cover  the  advertisement  of  its 
commercial  club,  and  naively  gives  itself  away  by  stating  that 
in  December,  1909,  Tulsa,  "the  industrial  city,"  had  a  population 
of  24,000.  In  only  exceptional  cases,  does  such  literature — that 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  Amarillo,  Texas,  tell  conserva- 
tively what  the  town  has  to  offer.  The  Texas  Commercial  clubs 
have  banded  together  and  advertise  their  boomlets  through 
"Texas  commercial  secretaries."  Dallas  is  about  to  build  a 
million  dollar  railroad  terminal ;  Houston  is  to  have  a  ship-chan- 
nel to  the  sea;  Port  Arthur,  so  small  that  a  street-car  line 
struggled  hard  for  success,  has  commerce  with  New  York  and 
Europe. 

Railroad  advertising  is  equally  well  developed.  The  Sunset 
Magazine  is  published  by  the  Southern  Pacific.  In  the  free 
libraries  of  the  East,  as  well  as  Southwest,  are  to  be  found  books 
published  by  the  railroads,  which  describe  the  land.  As  already 
noted,  all  this  advertising  is  meant  for  the  colonist  with  funds, 
rather  than  for  the  work-seeker,  but  the  bait  draws  numbers  of 
this  class,  who  come  without  funds,  and  who  often  fill  no  definite 
need. 

The  types  of  industrial  labor  attracted  to  the  Southwest  are 
of  the  following  classes :  railroad-shop  workers,  factory  hands, 
journeymen  mechanics,  casual  laborers,  and  immigrants.  Of 
these  the  railroad-shop  worker  is  the  best  established,  since  his 
work  does  not  depend  upon  the  success  of  crops.  He  may  travel 


30  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

on  account  of  increase  or  reduction  of  a  working  force,  the 
establishment  of  a  new  shop,  or  a  strike.  Since  most  of  the  rail- 
road shops  are  about  Dallas  and  Fort  Worth,  the  railroad-shop 
worker  often  drifts  to  these  cities.  At  Fort  Worth,  I  met  a  man 
who  had  started  in  at  the  Kansas  City  shops,  had  gone  from 
there  to  those  in  St.  Louis,  had  returned  to  Kansas  City,  then 
gone  to  Parsons,  Kansas,  Fort  Smith,  and  the  Muskogee  shops. 
Later  he  came  back  to  Fort  Smith,  and  when  I  met  him,  he  was 
on  the  way  to  the  shops  at  Palestine,  Texas. 

When  a  worker  in  a  railroad-shop  loses  his  job  he  usually 
leaves  town  together  with  a  number  of  his  fellows,  since  there 
is  nothing  else  he  can  do  there.  Alternative  industries  like 
machine  shops  and  steel  works  are  rare  in  the  Southwest. 

The  newly  arrived  immigrant  railroad-shop  worker  can  sel- 
dom find  employment  except  where  people  of  his  nationality  work 
so  that  he  can  be  made  to  understand  orders.  At  the  Muskogee, 
Okla.,  shops,  for  example  Jewish  immigrants  will  not  be  em- 
ployed, but  the  reverse  is  true  at  Cleburne,  Texas,  where  experi- 
enced workers  of  the  same  race  can  speak  English  and  interpret 
orders  in  Yiddish. 

The  drifting  factory  hand  is  a  perplexing  problem.  The  case 
of  the  bonaz  operator  is  typical.  He  came  by  boat  from  New 
York  to  Houston  confidently  expecting  to  find  work  there  and 
at  better  wages  than  in  New  York.  To  his  consternation  he 
found  that  his  work  was  unknown  and  he  had  to  turn  to  casual 
labor.  Cloak  and  suit  and  clothing  operators  come  from  the  East 
only  to  discover  that  the  only  clothing  industry  of  the  Southwest 
is  overall-making  which  the  employment  of  Mexicans  has  made 
a  sweated  industry  at  San  Antonio  and  elsewhere.  These  immi- 
grants, Jews  and  others,  usually  drift  back  from  community  to 
community,  to  the  middle  West  and  East. 

The  journeyman  tailor,  painter,  or  mechanic,  is  hampered  not 
only  because  he  is  a  seasonal  worker,  but  also  because  his  season 
is  irregularly  and  indefinitely  hastened  or  delayed  by  the  direct 
dependence  of  business  upon  the  crops.  Just  as  the  agricultural 
laborer  seeks  another  part  of  the  state  during  a  dry  spell,  so  does 
the  journeyman  mechanic  leave  an  urban  center  which  has  had 
a  slump  because  of  the  crop.  In  a  period  of  delayed  cotton  crop, 
I  met  a  painter  in  Texarkana  who  had  left  Fort  Worth  for 
Shreveport  during  a  railroad  excursion.  There  he  had  found 
work,  but  when  work  grew  slack  in  Shreveport,  he  went  on  to 


UNEMPLOYMENT  31 

Texarkana,  where,  since  nothing  better  offered,  he  took  work  in 
a  casket  factory.  He  was  preparing  to  return  to  Fort  Worth 
since  he  had  heard  of  rains  in  the  cotton  country.  Like  other 
artisans  he  felt  that  he  must  remain  within  the  ranks  of  his  trade. 
A  like  case  is  that  of  a  drifting  tailor,  in  an  Oklahoma  town,  who 
when  offered  work  at  "altering  and  repairing"  refused  it,  pre- 
ferring to  hold  out  on  scanty  funds  until  he  could  secure  "new 
work." 

Negro  casual  labor,  since  it  is  abundant  and  cheaper,  crowds 
out  white  casual  labor  in  the  Southwest  and  further  limits  its 
field  because  of  the  sentiment  against  whites  and  Negroes  work- 
ing together.  So  limited  are  the  white  casual  laborer's  oppor- 
tunities in  the  Southwest  that  a  group  of  longshoremen  who  were 
out  of  work  in  Galveston  had  to  take  the  choice  between  con- 
struction work  offered  on  the  El  Paso  and  southwestern  rail- 
roads 1000  miles  west  and  work  offered  at  Key  West  1000  miles 
east. 

The  lignite  mines  and  cement  fields  in  Texas  and  the  lumber 
operations  in  Louisiana  regularly  advertise  for  men  in  many 
newspapers.  Two  carpenters,  attracted  by  the  advertisements  of 
a  car-repair  shop,  stating  that  good  carpenters  could  bring  their 
tools  and  go  to  work  at  any  time,  worked  their  way  over  an  inter- 
vening 400  miles  but  only  one  of  them  secured  work.  I  have 
seen  this  car-repair  shop  advertise  in  papers  as  far  east  as 
Pittsburgh. 

Again  a  Texas  bristle  factory  advertised  for  bristle  sorters, 
steady  work.  The  group  of  workers  that  responded  came  from 
Chicago.  In  three  months  they  were  told  there  was  no  more 
work  in  that  factory,  which  was  the  only  one  of  the  kind  in 
Texas.  One  of  the  men  heard  from  some  one  that  his  work  was 
to  be  found  at  Houston.  He  traveled  the  300  miles  only  to 
discover  that  the  factory  in  that  city  was  a  hair  factory.  Whether 
the  manufacturer  acted  in  good  faith  is  not  the  question;  the 
maladjustment  resulting  when  strange  workmen  are  brought  into 
a  region,  the  better  man  to  be  kept  permanently  and  the  poorer 
temporarily  employed  is  the  social  problem  in  this  situation.  It 
is  aggravated  by  a  further  commercial  phase  of  transportation 
methods. 

The  continuous  drift  makes  a  well-blazed  road,  cheap  excur- 
sions, mapping  the  route,  and — this  is  the  point  which  should  be 
marked  and  weighed — making  it  cheaper  for  the  drifter  to  pene- 


32  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

trate  into 'the  country  than  to  leave.  The  man  who  has  tried  the 
Texas  and  Oklahoma  cities  without  success  goes  to  Los  Angeles, 
while  the  man  who  has  had  enough  of  the  Southwest  returns, 
not  to  St.  Louis,  as  might  be  presumed,  but  to  Kansas  City.  The 
drifter,  covering  the  more  expensive  journey  back  without  funds 
is  most  likely  to  become  a  social  problem.  For  men  traveling  for 
industrial  opportunities,  disinterested  advice  and  guidance  is  rare. 
In  a  few  cities  Charity  Organization  Societies  may  offer  such 
advice  but  it  is  much  less  alluring  than  the  glowing  promises  of 
the  boomer  and  less  apt  to  be  followed  on  that  account. 

The  following  advertisement  from  an  eastern  newspaper  is 
in  point: 

FREE  SHIPMENT  TO  THE  FAR  WEST.  500  men  for  railroad  work — 
foreigners  preferred.  Call  for  information  at  once.  International  Emp., 
419  Fourth  ave.,  city. 

Sometimes  immigrants,  Jews  and  Italians,  and  occasionally 
Greeks,  go  about  the  country  peddling  or  working  with  a 
"weather  eye"  open  for  a  location  for  a  small  store  or  shop  in  a 
little  town.  One  shoemaker,  who  started  in  his  search  from  San 
Antonio,  after  a  year's  wandering,  with  occasional  dependence  on 
charity,  finally  established  himself  in  Louisiana  at  Shreveport, 
where  he  has  the  most  successful  shoe-repair  shop  in  the  west 
end  of  the  town.  Peddling  bananas  to  the  ranchers,  which  in 
itself  is  profitable,  is  often  a  means  of  support  during  a  search 
for  such  openings. 

In  the  tourist  section  of  the  Southwest,  at  El  Paso,  San 
Antonio,  Phoenix,  Los  Angeles,  and  other  points,  the  problem  of 
the  sick  drifter  looking  for  light  work  overshadows  all  other 
social  conditions.  His  trail  crosses  at  right  angles  the  north  and 
south  course  of  the  other  work-seekers.  Hot  Springs  and  other 
Arkansas  towns  are  the  Mecca  of  the  rheumatic,  syphilitic,  and 
debilitated. 

West  of  San  Antonio  travel  the  tubercular,  with  a  branch 
trail  from  Colorado.  The  tubercular  drifter  is  limited  by  his 
illness  to  light  work,  and  to  the  dry  regions  where  work  is  scarce. 
His  lot  is  especially  hard.  A  man  far  advanced  in  the  disease 
came  to  Galveston,  having  turned  aside  from  his  route  to  Doug- 
las because  he  had  somehow  heard  that  in  Galveston  he  could 
regain  his  health.  At  the  hospital  the  physicians  warned  him  that 
he  was  imperilling  his  life,  so  long  as  he  remained  in  Galveston, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  33 

whereupon  a  benevolent  citizen  secured  him  transportation  to  El 
Paso.  Half-sick  men  in  search  of  health  are  eager  to  follow 
every  suggestion ;  therefore,  Silver  City,  New  Mexico,  in  its  mag- 
azine advertising,  describing  its  salubrious  climate  and  offering 
in  proof  the  building  of  a  government  tuberculosis  sanatorium 
there,  brings  a  trail  of  drifters  to  its  doors. 

The  foregoing  gives  some  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  problems 
of  the  drifter.  Along  what  lines  does  the  solution  lie?  A  pin 
map  of  the  societies  in  the  United  States  signing  the  transporta- 
tion agreement  in  1910,  reveals  a  bulking  of  signers  east  of  the 
Mississippi,  with  outposts  removed  some  distance  from  the  main 
body,  in  the  Texas  towns.  This  is  an  agreement  not  to  "pass 
along"  applicant  for  aid  to  the  next  city  as  the  easy  way  out, 
but  to  correspond  with  responsible  agencies  as  points  of  origin 
and  destination.  Between  the  Texas  towns  and  those  of  the 
Pacific  coast  there  is  a  hiatus,  except  for  El  Paso  and  Phoenix. 
Of  the  106  cities  signing  the  agreement  there  were  only  nineteen 
in  the  Southwest.  According  to  the  directory  of  Charity  Organ- 
ization Societies,  there  were  in  December,  1912,  254  organizations 
in  the  United  States,  with  only  fifteen  in  the  Southwest;  of  these 
fifteen  all  are  signers  of  the  transportation  agreement,  and  seven 
are  united  with  the  other  organizations  in  the  United  States  in 
the  American  Association  of  Societies  for  Organizing  Charity. 
This  reveals  the  unity  of  method  which  might  be  possible  in  a 
handling  of  the  drift  problem. 

The  health  resort  towns  have  long  been  conscious  of  the 
problem  of  the  sick  drifter,  but  only  recently  have  the  commercial 
cities,  notably  Dallas,  Fort  Worth,  Waco,  Houston,  become  alive 
to  their  kindred  problem  of  the  drifting  workman.  In  Dallas  a 
joint  employment  bureau  has  been  debated;  and  an  industrial 
agency  was  at  one  time  considered  in  Fort  Worth,  but  these 
would  not  offer  solutions,  since  the  problem  is  not  local  nor  is  it 
one  of  dealing  with  vagrants  or  homeless  men  alone.  Nothing 
can  be  done  until  the  many  small  towns  which  connect  the  great 
distances  are  joined  with  the  big  cities  in  a  cooperative  union. 

Sectional  organizations,  centered  about  Dallas,  Fort  Worth, 
Houston,  Galveston,  San  Antonio,  El  Paso,  Los  Angeles,  Okla- 
homa City,  and  other  points  where  the  problem  is  focussed,  would 
be  the  best  form  of  union.  A  state  organization,  which  has  been 
suggested,  might  also  be  good,  since  it  would  fix  responsibility, 
but  in  as  large  a  state  as  Texas  such  an  organization  would  be 


34  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

loose ;  at  El  Paso  or  other  such  points  it  would  be  necessary  to 
cross  the  state  line  for  organization.  Centering  the  organization 
about  big  cities,  which  are  the  most  seriously  affected,  would 
make  them  responsible  for  the  rallying  of  small  towns  about 
them,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  contracts  such  as  transportation 
agreements.  Sectional  organizations,  with  the  counties  as  small 
units,  would  help  keep  the  circle  of  active  cooperation  within  the 
smaller  towns  which  do  not  realize  the  weight  of  the  problem. 
The  English  shire  associations  might  offer  suggestions  for  the 
scheme,  but  could  not  serve  as  models  since  they  are  organized 
largely  for  the  suppression  of  mendicancy  and  vagrancy. 

In  those  cities  where  the  Charity  Organization  Societies  are 
doing  effective  work,  these  organizations  could  be  built  around 
them,  and  since  the  population  in  the  Southwest  is  too  thin  to 
support  such  societies  in  the  small  towns,  corresponding  com- 
mittees in  those  small  towns  might  be  built  up. 

Bureaus  of  advice  and  information,  counteracting  the  zeal 
of  the  boomer,  and  the  promiscuous  solicitation  through  general 
advertising,  are  needed  for  the  proper  direction  of  work-seekers 
and  the  turning  back  of  the  vagrant  and  the  work-shy.  They  are 
needed  none  the  less  for  the  real  work-seeker  who  drifts  over 
great  distances  and  becomes  maladjusted  as  to  where  he  can  and 
where  he  cannot  find  work.  These  bureaus  should  therefore  be 
sources  of  accurate  information  concerning  local  conditions  and 
needs,  and  should  spread  their  knowledge  through  like  offices  in 
other  cities.  Of  course,  when  this  information  consists  of  def- 
inite requests  for  workers,  this  exchange,  in  order  to  prevent 
abuse,  would  be  confidential. 

England  and  Germany  have  devised  a  way-ticket  system  issued 
by  the  police.  An  English  committee  on  vagrancy  has  recom- 
mended that  its  use  be  extended  to  bona  fide  work-seekers  with 
way-tickets  "issued  by  charity  organization  societies  and,  in  the 
case  of  organized  workers,  by  their  trade  unions,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  police,  and  the  less  reputable  class  of  wayfarers  alone 
might  be  required  to  apply  to  the  local  police  office."  The  pur- 
pose of  this  ticket  is  to  indorse  or  black-list  the  movements  of 
the  drifter,  according  to  his  record,  to  register  his  destination, 
and  to  help  him  in  the  direction  of  work,  thus  making  him  least 
likely  to  become  a  public  charge.  But  unless  it  possesses  greater 
elasticity  than  seems  possible,  this  scheme  could  not  be  success- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  35 

fully  applied  in  a  country  with  the  free  and  hearty  spirit  of  the 
Southwest. 

From  this  continental  experience,  however,  might  evolve  a 
plan  whereby  the  work-shy  would  be  eliminated  and  the  work- 
seeking  colonist  be  helped  to  establish  himself  so  that  he  might 
share  in  the  prosperity  of  the  great  Southwest. 

Survey.    33:217-8.  November  28,  1914 
A  Chicago  Plan  for  Meeting  Unemployment  and  Destitution 

A  program  for  relieving  and  in  part  heading  off  Unemploy- 
ment and  general  distress  in  Chicago  during  the  coming  winter 
has  been  drafted  by  Eugene  T.  Lies,  general  superintendent  of 
the  United  Charities  of  Chicago. 

It  has  been  submitted  to  James  H.  Lawley,  chairman  of  the 
Chicago  Municipal  Markets  Commission,  which  has  under  con- 
sideration a  resolution  of  the  City  Council  calling  for  an  inquiry 
into  Unemployment  and  destitution. 

Under  two  major  headings,  philanthropic  measures  and  unem- 
ployment measures,  the  program  gives  in  concise  form  some  of 
the  more  important  conclusions  unanimously  arrived  at  in  a 
conference  of  executives  of  general  charitable  societies  recently 
held  in  New  York  City.  It  has  been  put  in  the  hands  of  every 
Charity  Organization  Society  and  Associated  Charities  in  the 
United  States. 

The  program  is  as  follows : 

i.     Philanthropic  Measures 

A.  Discourage  such  things  as  soup  kitchens  and  bread  lines 
for  the  unemployed,  since  they  are  mass  methods,  as  a  rule  un- 
discriminating,  and  do  more  harm  than  good. 

B.  Discourage    the    creation    of    new    charitable    machinery 
to  fill  a  temporary  need.    Hence  let  the  City  Council  avoid  appro- 
priating a  large  fund  for  charitable  purposes  this  winter.     Since 
the   very   announcement   of   such   an   appropriation   would   very 
likely  defeat  its  purpose,  for  it  would  bring  hordes  of  applicants 
from  every  direction  outside  of  Chicago  and  many  people  in  the 
city   who   are  not  in   genuine   need  would   also  be  tempted  to 
try  their  luck  at  getting  a  share  of  the  money.    In  other  words, 
it  would  mean  a  congestion  of  applicants,  a  large  force  to  handle 


36  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

them,  and  undiscriminating  treatment.    Furthermore,  it  would  be 
exceedingly  difficult  to  keep  politics  out  of  the  scheme. 

Rather,  encourage  existing  public  and  private  agencies  to 
expand  and  strengthen  their  machinery  if  necessary.  Let  the 
county  board  put  larger  means  at  the  disposal  of  the  county 
agent,  and  let  the  general  public  give  adequately  in  funds  and 
volunteer,  personal  service  to  the  private  organizations  that  have 
proved  their  efficiency  and  reliability  through  the  years  and  that 
are  necessary  to  supplement  the  work  of  the  county,  doing 
these  many  things  both  in  the  way  of  material  relief  and  personal 
service  called  for  by  the  limitations  in  public  official  charity 
departments.  Furthermore,  public  appropriations  out  of  the  tax 
funds  to  subsidize  private 'societies  would  be  unwise. 

C.  Let  the  private  charities  take  pains  to  avoid  one  of  the 
mistakes  often  made  in  the  past,  here  and  elsewhere,  of  adver- 
tising that  they  are  about  to  raise  large  funds  to  take  care  of  the 
unemployed  for  the  same  reasons  as  stated  with  reference  to  the 
announcement  of  large  public  appropriations. 

D.  Adequate  preparation  should  be  made  to  take  care  of 
such   homeless    men  as   may   properly   claim    Chicago    as   their 
residence.     This  may  mean  planning  to  enlarge  the  Municipal 
Lodging  House  facilities  both  as  to  sleeping  quarters  and  food. 
It  also  means  proper  equipment  of  men  with  training  in  social 
work   to    deal    fittingly   with    each    applicant   according   to    his 
peculiar  needs,  physical,  mental,  moral,  and  economic. 

By  all  means  a  work  test  should  be  applied.  This  can  be  in 
the  form  of  labor  on  the  streets  or  odd  jobs  in  public  institu- 
tions so  many  hours  a  day  for  so  many  days'  accommodation  at 
the  Municipal  Lodging  House.  Such  adequate  facilities  to  care 
for  this  class  means  suppression  of  beggary  all  over  the  city, 
prevention  of  clogging  of  the  machinery  of  private  agencies, 
which  have  all  they  can  do  to  look  after  resident  poor  families, 
and  prevention  of  depredations  of  all  kinds  by  men  grown 
desperate  on  account  of  their  condition. 

E.  Let  the   churches,   the   smaller   relief   societies,   and   the 
specialized   charities    throughout   the   city  continue  to    function 
in  their  usual  way  with  the  unfortunates  who  properly  are  their 
charges   rather  than  deliberately  dump  them  upon  the  general 
relief  agencies,  as  they  are  tempted  to  do  in  an  emergency  like 
the  present.    Let  each  continue  to  do  its  proper  part  of  the  task 
confronting  us  all  and  the  task  will  be  properly  done. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  37 

2.   Unemployment  Measures. 

A.  Bring  home  to  all  private  employers  of  labor  their  pa- 
triotic and  humane  duty  to  keep  on  the  pay-roll  all  their  workers 
as  long  as  possible  into  the  winter  season,  or  if  they  must  cur- 
tail, then  to  put  all  or  most  of  the  men  on  part  time,  giving 
them  at  least  a  subsistence  income  for  themselves  and  families. 
If  some  men  must  actually  be  cut  off  from  the  pay-roll,  employers 
could  in  many  instances  provide  sufficient  relief  to  the  genuinely 
needy  ones  among  them.     Furthermore,  some  employers  might 
find  it  possible  at  this  time  to  make  some  much  needed  improve- 
ments in  or  about  their  plants  such  as  painting,  cleaning,  repair- 
ing, clearing  and  beautifying  grounds,  thus  absorbing  some  of 
their  men  who  otherwise  would  be  idle.    All  such  measures  will 
mean   the  conserving  of   efficiency  and  physical   well  being   of 
employes  for  the  time  of  returning  prosperity. 

B.  Study    existing   public    employment    agencies    to    see    if 
they  are  functioning  efficiently  at  a  time  like  this  and  if  found 
not  to  be,  see  if  they  can  be  strengthened.     If  for  any  reason, 
this  is  impossible,  then  establish  on  a  basis  that  is  in  accord  with 
the  best  expert  opinion  available  a  supplementary  public  agency 
that  will  be  capable  of  doing  this  work  of  bringing  as  many  men 
as  possible  who  are  out  of  employment  in  touch  with  whatever 
jobs  are  actually  available,  whether  in  the  city  or  outside  of  it. 
The  Wisconsin  system  suggests  the  method. 

C.  Encourage  the  women  citizens  of  Chicago  who  are  house- 
holders to    undertake   at   this   time   as    much    cleaning,    white- 
washing, and  improvement  of  yards  and  lawns  as  possible,  and 
call  upon  the  charity  offices,   state  employment  offices  and  the 
Municipal  Lodging  House  for  men  to  do  the  odd  jobs.    Many 
men  could  be  tided  over  short  periods  in  this  way. 

D.  Let  the  public  departments  arrange  as  far  as  is  possible 
to  continue  work  now  in  progress  to  a  more  distant  date  than 
is    usually    done,    rather   than    merely    follow    precedent    as   to 
the  time  of  cessation  of  such  work.    This  will  mean  continuing 
hundreds  of  men  on  an  independent  footing,  conserving  manhood, 
and  keep  them  away  possibly  altogether  from  charity  offices. 

E.  Let  public  departments  begin  now  on  needed  public  works 
or  improvements  in  order  to  absorb   some  of  the  unemployed, 
rather  than  postponing  them  to  a  future  date.    The  precautions 
necessary  are  these: 


38  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

1.  Be  sure  that  these  public  works  are  of  a  sort  that  will  be 
of  permanent  value  to  the  community. 

2.  Let  the  work  be  for  citizens  of  Chicago  primarily  and 
advertise  this   fact  widely  and   emphatically  or  men  will  flock 
in  from  all  points  of  the  compass  again  and   so  clog  the  ma- 
chinery as  to  cause  defeat  of  the  very  purpose  for  which  the 
emergency  work  is  being  undertaken. 

3.  Let  the  pay  of  the  men  be  at  standard  rates  for  the 
various  kinds  of  work  done. 

4.  Let  ability  of  the  man  to  do  the  job  available  be  the 
first  consideration  in  employing  him, — not  his  need  of  an  income. 
This  can  be  the  second  consideration.      If  two  men   of  equal 
ability  are  applying  for  a  specified  job,  then,  of  course,  take  the 
Chicago  man  who  has  a  family  dependent  upon  him. 

Nineteenth  Century.    64: 763-76.    November,  1908 
How  Switzerland  Deals  with  Her  Unemployed.    Edith  Sellers 

The  Swiss  are  an  eminently  frugal  people:  everything  that 
smacks  of  waste  is  in  their  eyes  the  veriest  anathema;  and  it 
is  to  them  a  source  of  real  satisfaction  that  no  other  people 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  can  make  a  penny  go  quite  so  far  as 
they  can.  And  they  are  as  practical  as  they  are  frugal:  when 
they  have  a  difficult  problem  to  solve,  instead  of  wasting  time 
lamenting  that  it  should  be  there  to  be  solved,  they  straightway 
set  to  work,  in  a  common-sense  fashion,  to  consider  how  the 
solving  can  best  be  done.  They  have  other  good  qualities,  too, 
of  course;  still,  it  was  because  they  are  frugal  and  practical, 
rather  than  because  they  are  humane  or  anything  else,  that  they 
first  began  grappling  with  Unemployment  as  a  subject  of  vital 
importance,  not  only  to  the  unemployed  themselves,  but  to  the 
whole  community. 

It  was  realised  clearly  in  Switzerland,  already  many  Ion? 
years  ago,  that  a  working  man  who  is  unemployed  is,  if  left 
to  himself,  prone  to  become  unemployable.  He  takes  to  the 
road  in  search  of  work,  and  on  the  road  drink  is  cheaper  than 
food,  besides  being  more  easily  procured.  A  glass  of  schnapps 
is  more  comforting,  too,  than  a  hunch  of  bread,  when  one  is 
down  on  one's  luck  and  may  have  to  sleep  in  a  ditch.  Nor  is 
drink  the  only  danger.  It  is  the  easiest  thing  in  life  to  drift 


UNEMPLOYMENT  39 

into  loafing  ways:  they  are  few  and  far  between,  indeed,  who 
can,  for  very  long  at  a  time,  tramp  up  and  down,  day  in,  day 
out,  looking  vainly  for  work,  without  losing  the  desire  to  find  it. 

It  was  realised  also  and  equally  clearly,  many  long  years  ago, 
that  for  the  community  to  allow  any  one  of  its  members,  who 
could  be  kept  employable,  to  become  unemployable,  is  sheer 
wasteful  folly,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  because,  when  once 
he  is  unemployable,  the  community  must  support  him — must 
support  his  children,  too,  if  he  has  any.  Although  Switzerland 
differs  from  England  in  that  no  one  there  may  claim  relief  as 
a  right,  a  self-respecting  community  cannot  anywhere,  in  this 
our  day,  leave  even  the  most  worthless  of  its  members  to  die 
of  starvation.  Besides,  even  if  it  could,  such  a  proceeding  would 
be  fraught  with  difficulties,  especially  in  a  country  where,  as  in 
Switzerland,  the  government  is  democratic.  For  although  there 
are  undoubtedly  both  men  and  women  capable  of  starving — 
some  of  them  actually  do  starve — without  disturbing  their  neigh- 
bours by  unseemly  wails,  they  form  but  a  small  minority  of 
any  population;  and  with  the  vast  majority  it  is  quite  other- 
wise. The  vast  majority  it  is  practically  impossible  to  leave  to 
starve,  because  of  the  uproar  they  would  make  while  starving. 
For  them  the  community  must  provide  board  together  with 
lodging,  if  they  cannot  provide  it  for  themselves;  and  they 
cannot,  if  they  are  unemployable.  It  behooves  the  community, 
therefore,  as  a  mere  matter  of  self-interest — so,  at  least,  it  is 
argued  in  Switzerland — to  do  everything  that  can  be  done  to 
prevent  their  being  unemployed,  lest  they  become  unemployable. 

This  is  a  point  on  which  all  cantons  alike  hold  decided  views. 
Throughout  the  country,  indeed,  there  is  a  strong  feeling  that 
any  man  who  is  out  of  work  must  be  helped  to  find  work;  and 
this  not  so  much  for  his  own  sake,  as  for  the  sake  of  the  whole 
community — to  guard  against  his  being  a  cause  of  expense  to  it, 
instead  of  being,  as  he  ought  to  be,  a  source  of  income.  There 
is,  however,  an  equally  strong  feeling  that,  when  the  work  is 
found,  the  man  must,  if  necessary,  for  his  own  sake  as  well  as 
the  sake  of  the  community,  be  made  to  do  it;  to  do  it  well,  too. 
Practically  everywhere  in  Switzerland,  while  it  is  held  to  be 
the  duty  of  the  authorities  to  stand  by  the  genuine  work-seeker 
and  help  him,  it  is  held  to  be  their  duty  also  to  mete  out  pun- 
ishment to  the  work-shirker,  and  force  him  to  earn  his  daily 
bread  before  he  eats  it.  No  toleration  is  shown  to  the  loafer, 


40  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

for  he  is  regarded  as  one  who  wishes  to  prey  on  his  fellows, 
and  take  money  out  of  the  common  purse  while  putting  none 
into  it.  On  the  other  hand,  what  can  be  done  is  done,  and 
gladly,  to  guard  decent  men  from  all  danger  of  becoming  loafers 
through  mischance,  or  misfortune. 

In  England  a  man  may  deliberately  throw  up  one  job,  and, 
without  ever  making  an  effort  to  find  another,  remain  for 
months  in  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed,  steadily  deteriorating 
all  the  time  into  an  unemployable.  Meanwhile,  no  one  has  the 
right  to  say  him  yea,  or  nay,  unless  he  applies  for  poor  relief. 
In  Switzerland,  however,  it  is  otherwise.  There  is  no  resorting 
to  workhouses  as  to  hotels  there;  no  wandering  round  the 
countryside  extorting  alms  while  pretending  to  look  for  work. 
For  begging  is  a  crime  and  so  is  vagrancy ;  and  in  some  cantons 
the  police  receive  a  special  fee  for  every  beggar  or  vagrant 
they  arrest.  If  a  man  is  out  of  work  there,  he  must  try  to 
find  work;  for  if  he  does  not,  the  authorities  of  the  district 
where  he  has  a  settlement  will  find  it  for  him,  and  of  a  kind, 
perhaps,  not  at  all  to  his  taste — tiring  and  badly  paid.  And  he 
cannot  refuse  to  do  it,  for  if  he  does  he  may  be  packed  off 
straight  to  a  penal  workhouse,  an  institution  where  military 
discipline  prevails,  and  where  every  inmate  is  made  to  work 
to  the  full  extent  of  his  strength,  receiving  in  return  board 
and  lodging  with  wages  of  from  a  penny  to  threepence  a  day. 
And  when  once  he  is  there,  there  he  must  stay,  until  the  au- 
thorities decree  that  he  shall  depart;  for  as  a  penal  work- 
house is  practically  a  prison,  he  cannot  take  his  own  discharge, 
and  the  police  are  always  on  the  alert  to  prevent  his  running 
away.  No  matter  how  long  his  sojourn  lasts,  however,  it  does 
not  cost  the  community  a  single  penny ;  for  in  Switzerland  these 
penal  institutions  are  self-supporting.  Some  of  them,  indeed, 
are  said  to  be  a  regular  source  of  income  to  the  cantons  to 
which  they  belong. 

Then  in  England  a  man  may  lose  his  work  through  no  fault 
of  his  own,  simply  because  times  are  bad;  and  although  he  may 
strive  with  all  his  might  and  main  to  find  something  or  other 
to  do,  he  may  fail.  He  may  be  driven  by  the  sheer  force  of 
circumstances  over  which  he  has  no  control  whatever  into 
joining  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed;  nay,  let  him  struggle  as 
he  will,  he  may  even,  if  his  strength  or  his  heart  fail  him, 
be  driven  into  becoming  an  unemployable.  Meanwhile  it  is  no 


UNEMPLOYMENT  41 

one's  real  business  to  give  him  a  helping  hand,  and  try  to  keep 
him  from  drifting  downwards.  No  matter  how  deserving  he 
may  be,  how  sober,  industrious,  and  thrifty,  the  community  in 
most  districts  takes  no  more  thought  for  him  than  for  the 
veriest  drunken,  lazy  wastrel.  It  looks  on  the  two  with  an 
equal  eye,  and  is  just  as  willing  to  give  aid  to  the  one  as  to 
the  other.  The  casual  ward  and  the  workhouse  stand  open 
to  all  the  unemployed  alike;  and  all  the  unemployed  alike,  no 
matter  how  worthy  or  how  worthless,  have  an  equal  chance, 
so  far  as  the  community  is  concerned,  of  becoming  unem- 
ployable. 

In  this  case  also  in  Switzerland  it  is  otherwise:  there  is  no 
classing  of  the  unemployed  by  casualty  or  misfortune  with  the 
unemployed  by  laziness  or  misconduct  there ;  no  meting  out  to 
them  of  the  same  measure.  On  the  contrary,  as  a  matter  both 
of  justice  and  good  policy,  considerable  trouble  is  taken  to 
distinguish  between  the  two  classes,  so  that  each  may  be  dealt 
with  according  to  its  merits.  The  man  who  is  out  of  work 
through  his  own  fault,  and  because  he  does  not  wish  to  be  in 
work,  is  treated  as  a  criminal,  and  sent  as  a  prisoner  to  a  penal 
institution;  while  the  man  who  is  out  of  work  in  spite  of  his 
earnest  endeavour  to  be  in  work,  is  helped  without  being  sub- 
jected to  any  humiliation  whatever.  It  is  much  more  easy  there, 
however,  than  it  is  here,  it  must  be  admitted,  to  distinguish 
between  unemployed  and  unemployable;  as  there  every  working- 
man  has  his  "papers,"  i.  e.  documents  which  are  given  to  him  by 
the  authorities  of  the  district  where  he  has  his  settlement,  and 
which  contain  full  information  as  to  where  and  by  whom  he 
has  been  employed  in  the  course  of  his  life.  Still  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  too  should  not  have  "papers,"  as  their  cost  would 
practically  be  nil ;  and  it  could  be  no  disgrace  to  any  man,  and 
might  sometimes  be  a  great  convenience  to  a  respectable  man, 
to  have  always  at  hand  proof  that  he  is  not  a  wastrel. 

In  most  districts  in  Switzerland  there  is  a  special  fund,  out 
of  which  grants  are  made  to  respectable  persons  who  are  tem- 
porarily in  distress,  owing  to  lack  of  employment;  and  these 
grants  entail  neither  the  disgrace,  nor  yet  the  disabilities,  entailed 
by  poor  relief.  In  most  districts,  too,  the  authorities  make  it 
part  of  their  business  to  try  to  provide  lucrative  work  for 
persons  who  cannot  provide  it  for  themselves.  They  pay  them 
regular  wages,  but  lower  wages  than  a  private  employer  would 


42  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

pay  them  for  similar  work;  and  sometimes,  instead  of  paying 
them  in  money,  they  pay  them  in  kind.  Then  relief-in-kind 
stations,  i.e.  casual  wards  organised  on  philanthropic  lines,  are 
now  maintained  in  every  part  of  industrial  Switzerland  for  the 
exclusive  use  of  the  respectable  unemployed;  and  drunkards, 
criminals  and  loafers  are  never  allowed  to  cross  the  threshold 
of  these  places. 

No  one  is  admitted  to  a  Swiss  relief-in-kind  station  unless 
his  papers  show  that  he  has  been  in  regular  work  within  the 
previous  three  months,  and  out  of  work  for  at  least  five  days; 
unless  they  show  also  that  neither  the  police  nor  his  own  district 
authorities  have  any  reason  for  looking  on  him  askance.  He 
who  is  admitted,  however,  is  made  welcome,  and  is  treated 
with  consideration  as  a  respectable  man  whom  misfortune  has 
befallen.  If  he  arrives  at  midday,  he  is  given  a  dinner,  and  is 
told  exactly  where  his  best  chance  lies  of  finding  work  in  the 
whole  district.  For  attached,  as  a  rule,  to  a  station  is  a  labour 
bureau,  which  is  in  close  touch  with  all  the  employers  for  miles 
around,  and  in  communication  with  all  the  other  labour  bureaux 
in  the  canton,  as  well  as  with  the  central  bureau  for  the  whole 
country  at  Zurich.  If  he  arrives  in  the  evening,  he  is  provided 
with  supper  and  a  comfortable  bed ;  and  on  the  following  morn- 
ing with  breakfast.  All  this  gratis,  and  without  his  ever  being 
asked  to  do  a  single  stroke  of  work.  When  once  he  has  been 
to  a  station,  however,  he  may  not  return  there  until  at  least 
six  months  have  passed;  and  he  may  not,  as  a  rule,  stay  more 
than  one  night  at  the  same  station.  Still,  if  he  is  foot-sore  and 
weary,  and  manifestly  in  need  of  a  rest,  he  is  allowed  to  remain 
longer,  and  is  given  the  chance  of  washing  his  clothes  and 
putting  them  in  order.  For  the  very  raison  d'etre  of  these 
places,  it  must  be  noted,  is  to  help  the  respectable  unemployed 
to  find  employment,  not  only  by  telling  them  where  it  is  to  be 
found,  but  by  keeping  them  fit,  physically  as  in  all  other  ways, 
while  they  are  finding  it.  For  they  who  manage  them  are  alive 
to  the  fact  that  employers  give  the  preference  to  the  fittest 
when  engaging  hands. 

These  stations  are  a  semi-private  institution:  they  were  or- 
ganised and  are  managed  by  local  non-official  committees,  which 
have  formed  themselves  into  an  intercantonal  union,  and  all 
work  together.  They  are  supported  partly  by  voluntary  contri- 
butions, and  partly  by  state,  municipal,  and  communal  grants. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  43 

The  Poor  Law  authorities  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
them ;  great  care,  indeed,  is  taken  to  keep  them  free  from  every- 
thing connected  with  poor  relief,  and  to  emphasise  the  fact  that 
they  are  there  for  the  benefit  not  of  paupers,  but  of  men  who, 
although  temporarily  in  distress  owing  to  lack  of  employment, 
are  striving  to  escape  becoming  paupers. 

For  respectable  work-seekers  a  relief-in-kind  station  is  a  real 
boon,  for  they  can  go  there  not  only  without  losing  their  self- 
respect,  but  without  running  any  risk  of  being  pauperised.  For, 
although  at  a  station,  they  are  helped  in  all  possible  ways  to 
find  work,  if  they  are  doing  their  best  to  find  it  for  themselves ; 
let  them  but  relax  their  efforts,  and  show  signs  of  a  willingness 
to  remain  without  it,  and  they  are  at  once  thrown  on  their  own 
resources.  The  police,  who  are  in  close  cooperation  with  the 
station  officials,  always  keep  a  sharp  watch  on  the  unemployed, 
especially  on  such  as  are  sojourning  in  these  refuges;  and  it 
they  find  them  refusing  work  when  it  is  offered  under  reason- 
able conditions,  or  accepting  it  and  losing  it  through  careless- 
ness, laziness,  or  any  other  fault  of  their  own;  or  lounging 
by  the  wayside,  or  in  public-houses,  instead  of  betaking  them- 
selves where  they  have  been  told  there  is  the  chance  of  a  job, 
the  fact  is  reported,  with  the  result  that  there  is  made  on  their 
papers  a  note  which  prevents  their  ever  again  crossing  the 
threshold  of  any  station.  At  the  end  of  three  months  from 
the  day  they  leave  work,  they  forfeit,  in  any  case,  their  right 
to  go  to  any  station,  as  by  the  law  that  prevails  in  these  institu- 
tions it  is  only  men  who  have  been  in  regular  employment  during 
the  previous  three  months  who  are  eligible  for  admission. 

Besides  these  stations,  there  are  in  Zurich,  Berne,  Bale, 
Geneva,  Neuchatel,  and  St.  Gall  Herberge  zur  Heimat,  i.e.  home- 
inns,  where  working-men,  if  without  lodgings,  may  stay  with 
their  wives  and  children  for  a  time  at  very  small  expense,  or 
even  in  some  cases  gratis.  There  are  also,  in  the  chief  industrial 
centres,  Wdrmestuben  (warm  rooms),  provided  either  by  the 
authorities,  or  by  some  private  society,  where  the  unemployed 
may  pass  their  days  while  waiting  for  work. 

Already  hundreds  of  years  ago  the  Swiss  were  dealing  with 
their  unemployed  on  common-sense  lines,  and  for  the  express 
purpose  of  preventing  their  becoming  a  charge  on  the  com- 
munity. And,  curiously  enough,  they  were  guided  by  precisely 
the  same  principles  then  as  they  are  guided  now.  They  were 


44  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

every  whit  as  sure,  when  Zwinglius  was  their  social  law-giver, 
as  they  are  today,  that  to  help  the  work-seeker,  while  harrying 
the  work-shirker,  is  an  act  of  good  policy  as  well  as  of  right- 
ousness.  They  had  much  the  same  methods,  too,  of  helping 
and  of  harrying  then  as  they  have  now:  hundreds  of  years  ago 
it  was  their  custom  to  provide  work  for  persons  who  professed 
to  be  unable  to  provide  it  for  themselves;  their  custom,  too,  to 
see  that  the  work  provided  was  done.  Already  in  1637  Zurich 
was  maintaining  a  penal  workhouse  to  which  it  sent  its  wastrel 
population;  and  in  1657  Berne  built  for  itself  a  similar  institu- 
tion. From  that  time  until  some  twenty  years  ago,  the  state  of 
things  in  Switzerland  remained  practically  the  same,  so  far  as 
the  unemployed  were  concerned.  And  even  then,  although  a 
notable  change  was  made,  it  was  a  change  that  consisted  not  in 
replacing  old  methods  by  new  ones,  but  in  supplementing  the 
old  by  new.  In  the  more  important  cantons  the  community, 
instead  of  contenting  itself  with  taking  thought  for  the  unem- 
ployed, as  it  had  theretofore,  began  to  take  thought  also  for  the 
employed,  began  to  try  to  help  them — or  rather  to  show  them 
how  to  help  themselves — not  to  be  unemployed,  and  how  to  be 
independent  even  if  unemployed.  Up  to  1890  social  reformers 
in  Switzerland  busied  themselves  chiefly  with  schemes  for  pro- 
viding the  unemployed  with  employment ;  since  then  the  schemes 
they  have  had  most  at  heart  have  been  schemes  for  enabling 
the  employed  to  insure  against  Unemployment,  and  to  remain 
employable  even  if  unemployed.  For  now  that  Switzerland  is 
to  a  certain  extent  an  industrial  state,  a  new  order  of  things 
has  arisen,  one  under  which  it  is  practically  impossible  sometimes 
to  provide  employment  for  all  who  need  it,  owing  to  the  large 
number  who  require  it  all  at  the  same  time. 

In  the  winter  of  1890  there  was  great  distress  in  Switzer- 
land: trade  was  so  bad  that  half  the  factories  in  the  country 
had  closed  their  doors,  and  every  town  was  thronged  with  men 
and  women  seeking  vainly  for  work.  District  authorities  were 
at  their  wits'  end;  for,  let  them  strive  as  they  would,  they  could 
not  find  work  for  all  who  clamoured  for  it;  and  when  they  took 
to  dispensing  charity  their  poor  funds  were  soon  empty.  A 
very  bitter  feeling  arose,  therefore,  among  the  working  classes, 
one  to  which  they  gave  voice  freely  at  the  Labour  Congress 
that  was  held  in  the  spring  of  1891.  At  this  congress  the 
Kecht  auf  Arbeit  was  the  burden  of  many  speeches;  and  for 


UNEMPLOYMENT  45 

the  first  time  the  cry  was  raised  for  insurance  against  Unem- 
ployment. A  petition  was  drawn  up,  calling  upon  the  Bundes- 
rath  to  insert  in  the  federal  constitution  an  article  recognising 
the  right  of  every  Swiss  subject  to  have  work  to  do,  and  to 
receive  adequate  wages  for  doing  it;  calling  upon  it  also  to 
devise  some  method  of  insuring  against  Unemployment.  The 
Bundesrath,  of  course,  refused  the  petition.  Still  the  public 
conscience  was  troubled;  for  it  seemed  an  intolerable  thing  that 
men  who  were  able  to  work,  and  eager  to  work,  should  be 
driven  into  accepting  poor  relief  or  charity  because  they  could 
find  no  work  to  do,  even  though  they  sought  it  diligently. 

The  trade  depression  continued,  and  in  the  winter  of  1891 
Dr.  Wassilieff,  a  well-known  labour  leader,  held  an  inquiry  in 
Berne  for  the  purpose  of  finding  out  to  what  extent  Unem- 
ployment really  prevailed  there.  His  report  caused  much  heart- 
searching,  as  it  proved  incontestably  that  a  large  section  of  the 
worki'ng  classes  were  without  employment,  and  were  therefore 
living  just  from  hand  to  mouth,  within  hailing  distance  of 
starvation.  It  proved  also  incidentally  that  they  who  were 
unemployed  then  would,  the  chances  were,  be  unemployed  again 
and  again,  as  their  unemployment  was  the  inevitable  outcome  of 
the  new  state  of  things  that  had  arisen,  owing  to  the  industrial 
development  of  the  country. 

No  sooner  were  the  results  of  Dr.  WassiliefFs  inquiry  known 
than  the  fact  was  recognised,  in  Berne  at  any  rate,  that  the 
country  was  face  to  face  with  a  terribly  difficult  problem;  and 
there  and  then  it  was  decided,  in  a  characteristically  practical 
fashion,  that  an  attempt  must  be  made  to  solve  it.  Men  of 
all  classes  and  callings  met  together;  and,  having  formed  them- 
selves into  a  committee,  set  to  work  to  study  the  whole  unem- 
ployed question,  with  a  view  to  finding  a  remedy  for  the  evils 
entailed  by  Unemployment.  While  this  committee  was  still 
sitting,  Dr.  Wassilieff  organised  a  Berne  Labourers'  Union,  and 
drew  up  for  the  benefit  of  its  members  a  scheme  for  insuring 
against  Unemployment.  He  proposed  that  the  union  should 
maintain  an  unemployed  fund,  to  which  all  the  members  should 
contribute ;  and  that  the  municipality  should  pay  into  it  out  of 
the  rates  at  least  3,000  francs  a  year.  Out  of  this  fund  regular 
allowances  were  to  be  paid  to  such  of  the  labourers  as  were  out 
of  work,  in  winter,  through  no  fault  of  their  own. 

Dr.  Wassilieff  having  laid  his  scheme  before  the  committee, 


46  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

the  members  modelled  on  it  a  scheme  of  their  own,  under 
which  it  was  proposed  that  any  labour  union  that  would  organ- 
ise an  unemployed  fund,  and  pay  allowances  to  those  belonging 
to  it  when  out  of  work,  should  receive  from  the  municipality 
an  annual  grant  equal  in  amount  to  half  the  sum  of  the  allow- 
ances paid.  When  this  project  was  brought  before  the  Muni- 
cipal Council,  several  of  the  councillors  opposed  it  strongly, 
holding  that  to  give  public  money  to  funds  belonging  to  unions 
was  practically  to  offer  a  bribe  to  men  to  become  unionists.  A 
commission  was  appointed,  therefore,  to  consider  not  only  the 
merits  and  demerits  of  the  scheme  in  question,  but  the  whole 
subject  of  insurance  against  Unemployment.  Within  two  months 
the  commissioners  pronounced  emphatically  in  favour  of  this 
form  of  insurance,  arguing  that,  for  the  well-being  of  the  state, 
it  was  almost  as  necessary  as  insurance  against  sickness  or 
accident.  And  they  recommended  that  an  Insurance  Bureau 
should  be  organised  immediately,  not  for  any  one  class  of 
workers,  however,  but  for  all  classes ;  and  not  by  trades  unions, 
or  any  other  section  of  the  community,  but  by  the  municipality 
representing  the  whole  community.  This  was  a  point  on  which 
they  laid  great  stress,  arguing  that,  as  Unemployment  affects 
the  whole  community,  the  whole  community  must  join  in  battling 
against  it.  Unfortunately,  they  gave  no  statistics  to  prove  what 
the  cost  of  the  battling  would  actually  be,  although  they  pro- 
posed that  the  expense  it  would  entail  on  the  community  should 
be  limited  to  5,000  francs  a  year. 

The  municipality  decided  at  once  to  act  on  the  recommenda- 
tion of  its  commissioners;  and,  as  an  experiment,  to  give  a 
trial  for  two  years  to  the  scheme  they  had  drawn  up.  In  April, 
1891,  there  was  opened  in  Berne  the  first  Municipal  Bureau  for 
Insurance  against  Unemployment  the  world  had  ever  seen. 

The  bureau  was  organised  on  voluntary  lines ;  any  Swiss 
subject  might  insure  in  it,  but  no  one  need  insure  unless  he 
chose.  Those  who  did  insure  were  required  to  pay  40  centimes 
— a  fraction  less  than  4^. — a  month  each  into  the  bureau  fund; 
and  in  return  they  secured  the  right  to  an  allowance  of  a 
franc  if  alone-standing,  or  a  franc  and  a  half  if  with  others 
dependent  on  them,  for  every  day,  up  to  sixty  days,  they  were 
out  of  work  in  winter  through  no  fault  of  their  own.  Employers 
were  not  required  to  contribute  to  the  fund,  but  it  was  hoped 
that  they  would  do  so  voluntarily. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  47 

During  the  first  year  404  men  insured  in  it;  but  fifty  of 
them  were  struck  off  the  list  because  they  did  not  pay  their  fees 
regularly.  Of  the  remaining  354,  216  were  out  of  work  in  the 
winter,  and  applied  for  help.  Work  was  found  for  50  of  them, 
and  the  other  166  received  allowances.  These  allowances 
amounted  to  6,835  francs,  while  the  fees  the  men  paid  amounted 
to  only  1,124  francs.  The  following  year  things  were  a  little 
better,  but  only  a  little;  for,  although  126  new  members  joined 
the  bureau,  67  names  were  removed  from  the  list.  In  the  course 
of  the  winter  226  of  the  insured  were  out  of  work,  and  219  of 
them  received  allowances  amounting  to  9,684  francs;  while  the 
fees  of  all  the  insured  together  amounted  only  to  1,366  francs. 
Thus,  when  in  1895  the  time  came  for  weighing  the  experiment 
in  the  balance,  no  one  could  claim  that  it  had  proved  a  success. 
Still,  there  was  a  strong  feeling  that  it  must  not  be  abandoned, 
as  it  might,  if  worked  differently,  prove  a  success  in  the  future. 
It  was  bound  to  prove  a  success,  indeed,  its  managers  main- 
tained, if  only  working-men  of  all  classes  could  be  induced  to 
throw  in  their  lot  together  and  insure  against  Unemployment. 
As  it  was,  it  was  only  the  unskilled  who  insured;  and  even 
among  the  unskilled,  only  those  who  were  likely  to  be  unem- 
ployed. This  was  proved  by  the  fact  that,  in  the  first  year  the 
bureau  existed,  61  per  cent  of  the  men  belonging  to  it  were 
out  of  work.  It  was  proposed,  therefore,  that  insurance  against 
Unemployment  should  be  made  compulsory;  and  as  this  was 
beyond  the  power  of  the  municipality,  Dr.  Wassilieff  appealed 
to  the  cantonal  government  to  frame  a  measure  on  the  same 
lines  as  that  on  which  the  Courts  of  Trade  are  founded,  con- 
ferring on  district  authorities  the  right  to  organise,  in  coopera- 
tion with  the  state,  insurance  against  Unemployment  on  com- 
pulsory lines.  He  even  showed  them  how  it  could  be  done,  as 
he  drew  up  for  them  a  compulsory  insurance  bill. 

The  bill  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  and  the  Minister  of 
the  Interior  announced  his  intention  of  adopting  it  as  a  govern- 
mental measure.  He  changed  his  tone,  however,  when  he  found 
that,  although  the  mass  of  the  workers  were  in  favour  of  it, 
the  better  paid  among  them  were  bitterly  opposed  to  it,  regard- 
ing it  as  an  attempt  to  levy  a  tax  on  them  for  the  benefit  of  their 
less  well-to-do  comrades.  Besides,  if  it  were  passed,  the  whole 
canton  would  be  flooded  with  underpaid  labor  from  other  can- 
tons, they  said.  The  end  of  it  was,  the  Cantonal  Parliament, 


48  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

while  expressing  warm  sympathy  with  the  aim  of  the  Bill,  de- 
cided that  the  subject  with  which  it  dealt  was  not  ripe  for 
legislation. 

Meanwhile  the  Berne  Voluntary  Insurance  Bureau  was  pur- 
suing the  even  tenor  of  its  way.  It  was  reorganized  in  1893  and 
again  in  1900.  Since  then  it  has  developed  into  an  extremely 
interesting  and  useful  institution.  It  is  now  joined  to  another 
and  still  more  useful  institution,  the  Berne  Municipal  Labor 
Bureau,  the  two  being  housed  in  the  same  building  and  worked 
together.  They  are  under  the  direction  and  control  of  a  manag- 
ing board,  consisting  of  nine  members,  three  of  whom  are  elected 
by  the  men  who  insure  and  three  by  their  employers,  while  three 
are  appointed  by  the  Municipal  Council.  These  directors  hold 
office  for  four  years ;  and  at  the  end  of  every  year  they  render 
an  account  of  their  stewardship  to  the  Municipal  Council.  Three 
of  the  directors  watch  over  the  working  of  the  insurance  bureau; 
three  over  that  of  the  labor  bureau;  while  one  acts  as  president, 
another  as  vice-president,  and  another,  again,  as  treasurer.  The 
actual  work  of  the  bureaux  is  done  by  three  paid  officials,  the 
manager,  the  manageress,  and  a  clerk.  The  manager  is  directly 
responsible  to  the  directors  both  for  what  he  does  himself  and 
what  is  done  by  the  other  officials.  All  the  bureaux  officials, 
whether  honorary  or  paid,  carry  on  a  regular  propaganda  to 
induce  men  in  good  times  to  insure  against  Unemployment  in  bad 
times.  The  insurance  bureau  is  open  only  to  men ;  but  the  labor 
bureau  is  open  both  to  men  and  women. 

Any  man  who  lives  in  Berne,  whether  a  Swiss  subject  or 
not,  may  now  insure  against  Unemployment  in  the  municipal 
bureau,  providing  he  is  able  to  work  and  not  above  sixty  years 
of  age.  All  that  he  has  to  do  is  to  apply  to  the  bureau,  either 
directly,  or  through  his  employer  or  his  union,  for  an  insurance 
book,  and  fasten  into  it  every  month  an  insurance  stamp  of  the 
value  of  70  centimes.  In  return  for  these  70  centimes  a  month 
he  secures  the  right  to  a  money  allowance  for  every  day,  up  to 
sixty  days,  that  he  is  out  of  work  during  the  months  of  Decem- 
ber, January,  and  February,  provided  that  he  has  been  in  work 
for  at  least  six  months  in  the  course  of  the  year,  provided  also 
that  he  has  not  lost  his  work  through  laziness,  disorderly  con- 
duct, or  any  other  fault  of  his  own,  and  that  he  has  not  refused 
work  offered  to  him  on  reasonable  conditions.  A  man  who  is 
unemployed  because  he  is  unemployable,  whether  from  illness  or 


UNEMPLOYMENT  49 

any  other  cause,  cannot  claim  an  allowance ;  nor  can  one  who  is 
out  on  strike,  or  who  has  belonged  to  the  bureau  for  less  than 
eight  months,  or  who  is  in  arrears  with  his  fees.  For  the  first 
thirty  days  the  unemployed  allowance  is  a  franc  and  a  half  a 
day  each  for  men  who  are  alone-standing,  and  two  francs  for 
those  who  have  others  dependent  on  them ;  and  for  the  remaining 
thirty  days  it  is  as  much  as  the  directors  can  afford  to  make  it — 
anything  from  80  centimes  to  a  franc  and  a  half.  If  the  directors 
refuse  to  grant  a  man  an  allowance,  or  if  they  reduce  his  allow- 
ance at  the  end  of  thirty  days  below  what  he  thinks  it  ought  to 
be,  he  may  appeal  against  them  to  the  Court  of  Trade.  The 
unemployed  elect  two  of  themselves  to  watch  over  their  interests 
and  see  that  each  of  them  receives  his  due. 

The  directors  are  bound  to  grant  an  allowance  to  every  mem- 
ber of  the  bureau  who  fulfils  the  conditions  under  which  allow- 
ances may  be  claimed.  As  one  of  these  conditions  is,  however, 
that  the.  claimant  must  be  out  of  work  through  no  fault  of  his 
own,  they  take  it  for  granted  that  every  claimant  is  anxious  to 
be  :n  work;  and,  therefore,  before  giving  him  one  penny,  they 
try  to  find  work  for  him.  The  manager  of  the  insurance  bureau, 
it  must  be  remembered,  is  also  the  manager  of  the  labour  bureau, 
and  as  such  is  in  constant  communication  with  all  the  employers 
of  labour  in  the  canton,  as  well  as  with  all  the  labour  bureaux 
in  the  country.  He,  therefore,  knows  to  a  nicety  the  state  of  the 
labour  market,  and  can  say  at  once  where,  if  anywhere,  work  is 
to  be  had.  And  members  of  the  insurance  bureau  are  allowed  to 
travel  on  all  the  state  railways  at  half  the  usual  fares,  when  in 
search  of  employment.  If  he  reports  to  the  directors  that  there 
is  no  work  anywhere,  they  apply  to  the  Municipal  Board  -jf 
Works  to  start  at  once  some  undertaking  that  would,  perhaps, 
otherwise  not  be  started  until  later.  For  they  have  an  agreement 
with  this  board  that  all  municipal  work  shall,  so  far  as  possible, 
be  done  in  December,  January,  and  February,  and  by  members 
of  the  insurance  bureau.  Thus  they  have,  as  a  rule,  a  fair 
amount  of  work  to  offer  during  these  months ;  and  anyone  who 
refuses  it  when  offered  forfeits,  of  course,  his  claim  to  an  allow- 
ance. Allowances  are  granted,  in  fact,  only  in  cases  in  which 
work  cannot  be  provided  and  only  until  it  can.  The  men  who 
receive  them  are  required  to  present  themselves,  twice  every  day, 
in  the  bureau  waiting-room  to  see  if  the  manager  has  a  job  for 
them. 


50  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

On  the  ist  of  April,  1905,  the  insurance  bureau  had  593  mem- 
bers, and  196  more  joined  it  in  the  course  of  the  year;  while  175 
were  struck  off  its  list,  either  because  they  had  died,  or  because 
they  had  failed  to  pay  their  fees.  On  the  ist  of  April,  1906,  it 
had  614  members ;  and  it  gained  126  more  during  the  year,  while 
it  lost  169.  In  the  winter  of  1905-6,  234  of  the  insured,  i.  e.  38 
per  cent,  were  out  of  work  and  received  either  work  or  allow- 
ances. Of  these  63  per  cent  were  under  fifty  years  of  age,  and 
only  9  per  cent  were  above  sixty.  In  the  winter  of  1906-7,  out 
of  571  members,  239,  i.  e.  42  per  cent,  announced  themselves  as 
being  out  of  work.  Fifty-five  per  cent  of  the  239  were  under 
fifty  years  of  age,  and  fifteen  were  above  sixty.  The  bureau 
succeeded  in  providing  114  of  them  with  work,  and  granted 
allowances  to  the  rest. 

In  1905-6  the  full  expenditure  of  the  insurance  bureau,  exclu- 
sive of  rent  and  salaries — the  municipality  provides  the  building 
for  both  the  bureaux  and  pays  their  three  officials — was  6,480 
francs;  and  in  1906-7  it  was  10,438  francs.  In  1905-6,  6,228 
francs  out  of  6,480  went  directly  to  the  insured  in  allowances; 
and  in  1906-7,  9,804  francs  out  of  10,438.  In  the  former  year 
office  expenses  amounted  only  to  123  francs,  and  in  the  latter, 
to  375- 

In  1905-6  the  income  of  the  bureau  was  19,022  francs,  viz. — 

Francs 

Members'    fees 4,702 

Employers'  voluntary  contributions 1,356 

Other    presents 229 

Municipal   grant    (fixed   in   amount) 12,000 

Interest   on   capital 735 


Total     19,022 

In  1906-7  its  income  was  17,948  francs,  viz. — 

Francs 

Members'   fees 3,822 

Employers'  voluntary  contributions 1,043 

Other    presents ?6 

Municipal     grant 12,000 

Interest   on  capital 1,007 

Total     17,948 

Thus,  even  without  any  municipal  grant  at  all,  the  insurance 
bureau  in  1905-6  would  have  paid  its  way  and  have  had  a  balance 
to  the  good  of  542  francs ;  while  in  1906-7  its  deficit  would  have 
been  only  4,490  francs. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  51 

The  labour  bureau  works  on  a  much  larger  scale.  In  1905-6, 
13,361  men  and  women  applied  to  it  for  work,  and  it  found  work 
for  6,582  of  them.  The  next  year,  15,509  persons  applied  for 
work,  and  8,365  of  them  received  it.  Beyond  its  share  of  the 
salaries  of  the  three  officials  and  of  the  rent  of  the  building 
where  it  is  housed,  the  labor  bureau  receives  nothing  from  the 
municipality.  Nor  does  it  need  anything;  for,  although  when 
acting  for  employers  or  employees  belonging  to  Berne  it  does 
its  work  gratis,  it  charges  a  small  fee  when  acting  for  aliens; 
and  these  fees  cover  its  expenses. 

Neither  of  these  bureaux  entails  any  great  expense  on  the 
community,  it  must  be  noted,  and  they  both  render  it  good  ser- 
vice. And  they  will  assuredly  render  it  much  better  service 
in  days  to  come  than  they  render  it  now.  For  that  in  labour 
bureaux  and  insurance  against  Unemployment  lies  the  true  solu- 
tion of  the  unemployed  problem  there  seems  little  doubt.  Only, 
for  it  to  be  the  true  solution,  the  insurance  must  be  compulsory; 
as  otherwise,  they  who  insure  against  Unemployment  will  always 
for  the  most  part  be  they  who  are  going  to  be  unemployed.  And 
unfortunately  therein  is  a  great  difficulty;  for  no  really  satis- 
factory scheme,  on  compulsory  lines,  for  this  form  of  insurance 
has  yet  been  devised  in  Switzerland,  in  spite  of  all  the  attempts 
that  have  been  made,  not  only  in  Berne,  but  in  St.  Gall,  Bale, 
Zurich,  and  Lausanne.  Still,  many  heads  are  now  at  work  trying 
hard  to  devise  one,  and  the  firm  belief  prevails  that  one  will  be 
devised  before  long. 

Meanwhile  there  is  no  just  standing  aside  with  folded  hands 
waiting.  On  the  contrary,  while  financial  experts  are  grappling 
with  one  unemployed  problem — insurance — the  very  man  in  the 
street  is  grappling  with  another;  and  his  problem  is  even  more 
important,  perhaps,  than  the  experts'.  Within  the  last  few  years 
there  has  arisen  in  Switzerland  a  great  popular  movement,  the 
end  and  aim  of  which  is  to  secure,  so  far  as  possible,  the  work- 
ing classes  against  Unemployment,  by  securing  them,  nolentes 
volentes,  against  unemployableness.  There  is  something  very 
like  a  crusade,  indeed,  being  carried  on  there  against  everything 
that  tends  to  make  men  unemployable. 

In  Switzerland,  as  elsewhere,  labour  bureaux  statistics  prove 
clearly  that,  excepting  during  industrial  crises,  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  unemployed  always  belong  to  the  unskilled  class; 
while  the  personal  experiences  of  bureaux  officials  go  far  towards 


52  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

proving  that  the  majority  of  them  are  more  or  less  unemployable, 
because  either  drunken,  lazy  or  unfit.  In  the  chief  cantons,  there- 
fore, men  and  women  of  all  degrees  have  formed  themselves  into 
societies ;  and  have  set  to  work,  in  cooperation  as  a  rule  with  the 
local  authorities,  to  try  to  bring  about  the  virtual  extinction  of 
the  unemployed  class  by  preventing  new  recruits  from  joining  it. 
With  them  it  is  a  regular  business  to  watch  over  the  young,  and 
see  that  their  fingers  and  their  eyes  are  trained  as  well  as  their 
brains ;  and  that  each  one  of  them  is  fitted,  so  far  as  in  him — or 
her — lies,  to  become  a  skilled  worker. 

In  almost  every  national  school  there  are  now  technical 
classes,  and  a  boy  must,  whether  his  parents  wish  it  or  not, 
learn  some  handicraft  before  he  leaves;  while  a  girl  must  learn 
sewing  and  laundry  work  as  well  as  cooking  and  housewifery. 
There  are  technical  continuation  schools,  too,  both  for  boys  and 
for  girls,  where  they  may  learn  gratis  anything  from  millinery  to 
higher  mathematics.  In  several  cantons  Poor  Law  authorities 
are  expressly  forbidden  to  allow  the  children  under  their  care 
to  become  unskilled  labourers ;  and  these  authorities  cannot  free 
themselves  from  their  responsibility  for  the  maintenance  of  a 
state  child  until  it  has  learnt  a  lucrative  calling.  Parents  who 
neglect  their  children,  who  allow  them  to  absent  themselves  from 
school,  or  who  do  not  do  their  best  to  put  them  in  the  way  of 
becoming  useful  self-supporting  citizens,  are  regarded  and  treated 
as  criminals.  One  of  the  functions  of  labour  bureaux  is  now  to 
arrange  for  the  apprenticeship  of  boys  whose  parents  cannot  be 
trusted  to  arrange  for  it  wisely.  Masters  are  directly  responsible 
to  the  local  authorities  for  the  technical  training  of  their  appren- 
tices ;  and  if  they  fail  in  their  duty  to  them,  they  may  be  punished. 
In  some  places  they  are  required  to  see  that  their  young  em- 
ployees go  to  a  night  school.  Thus  for  the  future  no  boy,  unless 
he  be  mentally  defective,  will  be  forced  to  join  the  unskilled 
class,  no  matter  how  poor  or  neglectful  his  parents  may  be. 
And  if  he  is  not  thrifty  and  sober,  as  well  as  skilled,  the  blame 
will  assuredly  be  his  own.  For  in  every  school  thrift  is  now 
taught  as  carefully  as  arithmetic;  and  teachers  are  required  to 
use  their  personal  influence  over  their  pupils  to  induce  them  to 
put  into  a  savings  bank  any  few  pence  they  may  have.  They  are 
required,  too — this  by  decree  of  the  Bundesrath — to  make  them 
understand  that  alcohol  is  something  which  it  behoves  them 
neither  to  touch  nor  yet  to  handle. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  53 

Nor  do  either  local  authorities  or  private  societies  content 
themselves,  in  Switzerland,  with  battling  against  unemployable- 
ness  in  the  workers  of  tomorrow ;  they  battle  against  it  also,  and 
almost  as  eagerly,  although  much  less  hopefully,  in  the  workers 
of  today.  There  are  cantons  where  the  life  of  any  man  who 
even  tries  to  loaf  is  made  a  burden  to  him,  and  where  at  the  first 
sign  of  alcoholism  the  patient  is  packed  off  to  a  home  for  inebri- 
ates. For  the  Swiss,  being  a  robust  race,  have  no  scruples  what- 
ever about  setting  at  naught  individual  rights,  when  these  rights 
either  clash  with  the  interests  of  the  community,  or  threaten  to 
entail  on  it  expense.  Switzerland  claims  to  be  the  freest  of  lands ; 
but  no  man  is  free  there  to  be  idle,  unless  he  can  prove,  to  the 
satisfaction  of  his  district  authorities,  that  he  has  the  means 
wherewith  to  provide  for  himself  and  those  dependent  on  him 
without  working.  Nor,  even  if  he  has  the  necessary  means,  is 
he  always  free  to  drink  at  his  own  discretion.  Whether  he  is, 
or  is  not,  depends  on  the  temper  of  his  local  authorities,  who 
may,  if  they  choose,  imprison  in  homes  for  inebriates  habitual 
drunkards,  so  as  to  prevent  their  setting  their  fellows  a  bad 
example;  just  as  they  may  imprison  in  penal  workhouses  loafers, 
even  before  they  become  a  burden  on  the  community,  so  as  to 
prevent  their  ever  becoming  a  burden. 

Both  homes  for  inebriates  and  penal  workhouses  are  regarded 
in  Switzerland  as  "bettering"  institutions  and  they  who  are  sent 
there  are  sent  to  be  bettered — cured  of  their  moral  infirmities. 

While  local  authorities  deal  with  drunkards,  private  societies — 
the  Blue  Cross,  the  Gemeinniitzige  Gesellschaft,  and  many 
others — make  it  their  business  to  try  to  prevent  drinking  and  in 
this  they  have  the  hearty  support  of  all  the  authorities  alike, 
from  the  Bundesrath  downwards.  When  the  Bundesrath  handed 
over  to  the  cantonal  governments  the  yield  of  the  spirit  monopoly, 
it  stipulated  that  one-tenth  of  it  should  be  devoted  to  promoting 
temperance  and  combating  alcoholism.  And  only  a  few  months 
ago  it  went  a  step  further,  as  it  prohibited  the  manufacturing  of 
absinthe;  and  it  is  now  taking  measures  to  guard  against  its 
being  imported.  Any  society  for  the  promotion  of  temperance 
receives  a  grant  from  the  spirit  monopoly  fund,  if  it  can  prove 
that  it  is  doing  its  work  well.  It  is  not  necessary  to  preach  tem- 
perance to  obtain  one ;  for  they  who  deal  out  the  grants  recognise 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  always  by  preaching  that  temperance  is  best 
promoted.  Half  the  men  who  resort  to  public  houses  do  so 


54  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

because  they  have  no  decent  fireside  of  their  own  by  which  to 
sit;  and  more  than  half  of  those  who  drink,  drink  because 
wholesome,  well-cooked  food  is  not  within  their  reach.  The 
Swiss,  therefore,  very  wisely  class  societies  for  housing  the 
working  classes,  or  for  providing  cheap,  wholesome  food,  as 
temperance  societies,  and  grant  them  subsidies.  Year  by  year, 
indeeed,  a  larger  and  larger  section  of  those  among  them  who 
fight  against  alcoholism,  and  through  alcoholism  against  unem- 
ployableness,  are  coming  to  look  on  decent  housing  and  good 
food  as  their  surest  weapons;  and  on  good  food  as  a  surer 
weapon,  even,  than  decent  housing.  That  is  why  there  are  now 
springing  up  on  all  sides  people's  kitchens,  where  a  hungry  man 
is  provided  for  4d.  with  as  much  as  he  can  eat — a  three  course 
dinner.  That  too,  is  why  social  reformers  are  now  going  forth 
into  the  highways  and  byways,  and  are  literally  forcing  girls  and 
women  to  come  in  and  be  taught  how  to  cook.  They  try  to  teach 
them  also  how  to  take  care  of  their  babies,  and  how  to  make  their 
homes  comfortable;  still,  the  first  lesson  of  all  that  they  teach 
them  is  how  to  cook  a  good,  cheap  dinner.  For  all  Switzerland 
is  now  alive  to  the  fact  that  if  men,  whether  unemployed  or 
employed,  are  not  to  become  unemployable,  they  must  be  kept 
from  drink;  all  Switzerland  is  alive  to  the  fact,  too,  that  it  is 
hopeless  work  trying  to  keep  them  from  drink,  unless  they  are 
properly  fed. 

Survey.    31:799-802.    March  28,  1914 

Great   Britain's  Experiment  in  Compulsory  Unemployment 
Insurance.     Katharine  Coman 

The  problem  of  Unemployment  is  nowhere  more  disquieting 
than  in  the  British  Isles.  England's  period  of  supremacy,  when 
her  manufactures  supplied  cotton  cloth  and  hardware  to  the 
world  has  given  way  to  chronic  depression,  as  Germany  and 
the  United  States  have  penetrated  the  markets  so  long  regarded 
as  a  commercial  monopoly.  The  recurring  business  crises,  as 
reflected  in  Unemployment,  indicate  a  diminishing  intensity,  but 
the  general  percentage  of  Unemployment,  as  reported  by  the 
trade  unions  records  is  not  diminishing. 

The  general  average  of  Unemployment  for  1871-1880  was 
3.99  per  cent;  that  for  1881-1890,  5.27  per  cent;  that  for  1891- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  55 

1900,  4.39  per  cent;  and  that  for  1901-1910,  5.05  per  cent.  This, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  reporting  unions  represent  the  pick 
of  the  wage-earners.  In  years  of  industrial  depression,  the 
number  of  unemployed  among  trade  union  members  doubles  this 
average.  The  general  percentage  rose  to  11.4  per  cent  in  1879, 
10.2  per  cent  in  1886,  7.5  per  cent  in  1893,  6  per  cent  in  1904, 
and  7.7  per  cent  in  1909.  At  such  times  the  Unemployment 
among  casual  laborers  amounts  to  a  national  calamity.  The 
distress  of  the  dock-laborers  of  London  and  Liverpool,  for 
instance,  affects  the  whole  community. 

Charitable  enterprises  of  every  description  are  put  under 
heavy  strain  without  doing  more  than  keep  the  men  and  their 
families  alive,  the  people  are  demoralized,  the  diseases  engen- 
dered by  under-feeding  and  over-crowding  thrive,  children  are 
born  and  bred  under  conditions  that  entail  physical  defects  and 
mental  incapacity,  the  race  standard  is  perceptibly  debased. 

In  the  midst  of  the  unexampled  distress  of  1886,  Joseph 
Chamberlain,  then  president  of  the  Local  Government  Board, 
proposed  that  the  unemployed  be  treated,  not  as  paupers  and 
"sturdy  beggars,"  but  as  men  who  would  be  glad  to  earn  their 
own  living  if  they  could  find  work  and  wages.  In  a  circular 
addressed  to  the  town  councils  of  the  realm,  he  urged  that 
municipal  works  should  be  undertaken  wherever  shortage  in  the 
demand  for  labor  had  reached  serious  proportions.  In  response 
to  similar  circulars  issued  by  the  Local  Government  Board  in 
subsequent  financial  crises,  the  policy  of  municipal  employment 
was  thoroughly  tested. 

The  instructive  history  of  this  twenty  years'  experience  is 
given  in  the  Minority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission. 
Every  form  of  public  enterprise  was  attempted,  the  building  of 
roads  and  water-works,  the  grading  of  parks  and  recreation 
grounds,  potato-growing,  the  draining  of  swamps,  the  reforesta- 
tion of  waste  lands,  the  construction  of  bulwarks  against  coast 
erosion — all  with  the  same  result.  The  work  cost  more  than 
under  ordinary  business  conditions  and  was  not  so  well  done, 
the  legitimately  unemployed  were  seldom  effectively  helped, 
while  tramps  and  casual  laborers  came  to  regard  the  town 
council  as  a  permanent  resource.  The  "unemployed  vote"  came 
to  be  a  menacing  factor  in  local  politics. 

No  other  method  of  dealing  with  the  problem  was  suggested, 
however,  and  the  terrible  winter  of  1904-5  impelled  the  Liberal- 


56  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

Unionist  government  to  father  the  Unemployed  Workmen  Act 
of  1905.  Artificial  employment  was  still  to  be  provided  by  the 
municipalities,  but  elaborate  precautions  were  taken  to  restrict 
the  opportunity  to  "the  elite  of  the  unemployed."  The  necessity 
of  providing  more  normal  avenues  to  employment  was  recog- 
nized in  the  sections  that  directed  the  establishment  of  labor 
exchanges  as  well  as  distress  committees  in  every  county  and 
county  borough  of  the  Kingdom.  Systematic  migration  from 
places  where  labor  was  superabundant  to  places  where  it  was 
in  demand  was  suggested.  Men  of  sufficient  caliber  were  assisted 
to  go  to  the  British  colonies,  and  farm  colonies  were  organized 
for  the  men  who  needed  training  and  physical  betterment. 

The  results  of  this  endeavor  to  deal  with  the  problem  of 
Unemployment  on  a  national  scale  were  disheartening.  Emi- 
gration was  successful  so  far  as  the  individual  families  were 
concerned,  but  it  was  evident  that  Great  Britain  could  not  long 
afford  to  send  her  ablest  workmen  over-sea.  Few  labor  ex- 
changes were  established,  and  these  served  merely  to  register 
applications  and  made  little  effort  to  secure  positions.  The 
general  tendency  was  to  rely  upon  public  works  as  an  immediate 
panacea,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  limitations  prescribed  by  the  law, 
"the  elite  of  the  unemployed"  were  not  reached.  Of  the  appli- 
cants for  work  53  per  cent  were  casual  laborers  and  40  per  cent 
might  be  characterized  as  "underemployed" — the  hangers-on  of 
declining  trades.  Nothing  was  accomplished  in  the  way  of 
diminishing  Unemployment,  and  the  best  that  can  be  said  of  the 
Unemployment  Workmen's  Act  is  that  it  was  an  expensive  but 
instructive  demonstration  of  how  not  to  do  it. 

Fortunately  not  much  time  was  consumed  in  following  this 
wrong  tack.  The  report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission  published 
in  1909,  reviewed  the  whole  situation.  Both  the  majority  and  the 
minority  reports  agreed  that  Unemployment  was  a  new  problem 
for  which  the  elaborate  mechanism  of  the  poor  law  provided 
no  suitable  remedy.  The  majority  had  a  partial  solution  to 
propose,  but  the  minority  of  four,  with  whom  Mrs.  Sidney 
Webb  was  an  influential  factor,  studied  the  underlying  causes 
of  Unemployment  and  presented  a  scheme  of  reform  that 
promised  something  more  than  palliation.  They  recommended 
that  such  relief  work  as  proved  necessary  should  be  such  as  to 
mean  the  renewal  of  working  energy,  i.e.  industrial  training  and 
physical  development,  such  as  the  Hollesley  Bay  farm  colony 


UNEMPLOYMENT  57 

was  planned  to  furnish  to  the  men  sent  there  for  work.  They 
urged  that  the  labor  exchanges,  which  had  worked  admirably 
in  London  and  the  three  Scotch  towns  where  they  had  been 
given  a  fair  trial,  should  be  rendered  obligatory,  so  that  a 
nation-wide  network  of  employment  bureaus  should  be  in  con- 
stant operation  to  bring  demand  and  supply  into  effective 
relation. 

The  fact  that  under  existing  industrial  conditions  there  was 
an  actual  surplus  of  labor,  was  definitely  recognized  and  the 
problem  of  providing  the  under-employed  with  the  means  of 
earning  an  adequate  livelihood  was  frankly  met.  A  simple 
solution  was  proposed,  viz.,  to  relieve  the  over-worked  and 
thereby  provide  occupation  for  the  under-employed.  The  age 
at  which  boys  and  girls  begin  work  should  be  raised  to  fifteen. 
Wage-earners  under  eighteen  should  be  required  to  spend  half 
of  every  working  day  in  an  industrial  training  school.  The 
eight-hour  day  should  be  the  standard  wherever  the  government 
had  the  right  of  regulation,  as  with  railway  and  tramway  ser- 
vants. The  mothers  of  young  children  should  be  withdrawn 
from  industrial  employment,  and  the  "home  aliment"  allowed 
to  those  who  have  no  other  means  of  support  should  be  sufficient 
for  suitable  maintenance.  Finally,  public  employment  as  far 
as  possible  should  be  so  adjusted  to  periods  of  industrial  depres- 
sion as  to  absorb  in  some  measure  the  men  thrown  temporarily 
out  of  work. 

For  the  normal  amount  of  Unemployment  that  must  always 
occur  under  a  wage-labor  system,  in  spite  of  all  legislative  pre- 
cautions, the  majority  and  minority  report  recommended  assisted 
insurance  through  the  medium  of  trade  unions,  following  the 
plan  that  had  proved  successful  in  Ghent  and  various  European 
cities.  An  unemployed  benefit  to  which  he  had  himself  con- 
tributed and  which  was  accorded  him  under  conditions  set  by 
a  body  of  which  he  was  a  member,  would  tide  a  man  over  the 
difficult  days  or  weeks  between  jobs,  without  in  any  way  dimin- 
ishing his  self-respect  or  his  determination  to  find  work  at  the 
first  possible  opportunity. 

The  initial  step  in  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  betterment  was 
taken  in  the  law  of  1909  which  rendered  the  establishment  of 
labor  exchanges  compulsory  under  the  supervision  of  the  Board 
of  Trade.  A  central  office  in  London  is  the  controlling  authority 
for  the  whole  Kingdom.  Eight  divisional  offices  at  London, 


58  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

Bristol,  Birmingham,  Doncaster,  Warrington,  Cardiff,  Glasgow 
and  Dublin  supervise  the  local  offices.  There  are  423  labor 
exchanges  and  1,066  local  agencies  (each  directed  by  the  nearest 
labor  exchange)  so  placed  that  there  is  an  employment  bureau 
within  five  miles  of  every  appreciable  body  of  workmen.  The 
total  staff  of  this  network  of  offices  approximates  5,000.  The 
system  is  admirably  organized,  and  the  spirit  of  the  service  is 
intelligent  and  devoted,  according  to  the  testimony  of  friends 
and  critics  alike.  The  labor  exchanges  have  accomplished  much, 
during  the  four  years  of  operation  just  closed,  to  bring  men 
seeking  employment  within  reach  of  the  employers  who  are 
seeking  labor.  There  is  some  prejudice  against  the  official 
bureaus  inherited  from  the  days  in  which  the  labor  exchange 
was  closely  associated  with  the  distress  committee.  As  yet  few 
employers  turn  to  the  exchange  for  high-grade  labor,  and  skilled 
artisans  dislike  to  find  themselves  associated  with  "unemploy- 
ables"  on  the  waiting  lists.  The  prejudice  is  passing,  however, 
and  the  system  of  labor  exchanges,  communicating  the  state  of 
the  labor  market  from  one  industrial  center  to  another,  is  already 
regarded  as  an  indispensable  method  of  distributing  surplus 
labor. 

The  adoption  of  the  policy  of  compulsory  and  assisted  insur- 
ance against  Unemployment  constitutes  so  startling  a  departure 
from  the  traditional  British  reliance  on  freedom  of  choice  and 
individual  initiative  that  a  word  as  to  the  preliminary  discussion 
seems  essential. 

Resolutions  in  favor  of  the  Ghent  system  of  assisted  insur- 
ance had  been  brought  forward  in  trade  union  congresses  even 
before  the  method  had  been  recommended  by  the  Majority  and 
Minority  reports  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission,  and  two  valuable 
discussions  of  the  European  experience  were  available  to  the 
interested  public.  The  National  Insurance  Act  containing  pro- 
visions for  compulsory  insurance  against  sickness,  and  Unem- 
ployment, was  before  the  House  of  Commons  from  May  to 
December  of  1911.  (Part  I  of  the  National  Insurance  Act  deals 
with  sickness  insurance  and  Part  II  with  Unemployment  insur- 
ance.) The  debate  on  the  double  measure  witnessed  some  re- 
markable changes  of  front.  Prime  Minister  Asquith  had  put 
himself  on  record  as  opposed  to  the  policy  of  compulsion : 

"You  cannot,  if  you  would,  set  up  and  work  here  the  com- 
plicated and  irritating  machinery  by  which  in  Germany  the 


UNEMPLOYMENT  59 

necessary  funds  for  provision  against  sickness  and  old  age  are 
extracted  from  employers  and  employed."  Mr.  Masterman, 
another  member  of  the  Cabinet,  said: 

"Compulsory  thrift  is  no  more  thrift  than  compulsory  religion 
is  religion.  ...  A  contributory  scheme  is  foreign  to  the 
traditions  of  this  country.  .  .  .  You  would  be  extracting 
taxes  from  the  poorest  class  for  the  benefit  of  the  well-to-do." 

On  the  other  hand  closer  students  of  Unemployment  insur- 
ance, like  Winston  S.  Churchill  and  Sidney  Buxton,  argued  for 
compulsory  insurance.  "Voluntary  schemes,"  said  the  Secretary 
of  State  for  the  Home  Department,  "have  always  failed  because 
those  men  most  likely  to  be  unemployed  have  resorted  to  them, 
and  consequently  there  was  a  preponderance  of  bad  risks  .  .  . 
which  must  be  fatal  to  the  success  of  the  scheme."  (Trade 
union  insurance,  it  should  be  noted,  is  voluntary  so  far  as  the 
decision  of  the  union  is  concerned.) 

As  to  the  objection  that  compulsory  insurance  might  work 
injustice  to  the  superior  workman  by  imposing  upon  him  the 
risks  of  the  inferior  man,  Mr.  Churchill  stated  that  this  disad- 
vantage was  mitigated  in  the  case  of  assisted  insurance.  "It  is 
intended  by  the  state  payment  to  make  it  just  worth  while  for 
the  superior  workman  to  pool  his  luck  with  his  comrades ;  it 
enables  the  insured  person  to  share  the  advantages  and  not  to 
share  the  risks."  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
lent  the  force  of  his  powerful  personality  to  the  campaign  for  a 
measure  of  insurance  against  sickness  and  Unemployment  and 
thus  a  qualified  form  of  compulsory  contribution  secured  the 
general  support  of  the  Liberal  party. 

Part  II  of  the  National  Insurance  Act  makes  insurance 
against  Unemployment  obligatory  for  the  workmen  and  work- 
women in  seven  selected  trades,  viz. :  building,  construction  of 
vehicles,  ship-building,  engineering,  iron- founding,  saw-milling 
and  construction  of  works.  These  trades  were  chosen  for  the 
initial  experiment  because  they  were  peculiarly  subject  to 
periods  of  Unemployment  and  yet  the  wages  paid  were  such  as 
to  enable  the  men  to  meet  insurance  premiums.  The  percentage 
of  unemployed  in  1909  for  the  engineering,  ship-building  and 
metal  trades  was  13  per  cent,  carpenters  and  joiners  11.7  per 
cent,  for  wood-working  and  furnishing  7.6  per  cent,  for  printing 
and  book-binding  5.6  per  cent,  for  all  other  trades  represented 
in  the  100  principal  trade  unions,  2.6  per  cent. 


60  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

The  data  for  a  final  actuarial  estimate  were  confessedly 
inadequate ;  but  on  the  basis  of  an  annual  Unemployment  varying 
from  4  to  16  per  cent,  a  flat  rate  of  6^d.  a  week  was 
determined  upon.  Of  this  premium,  the  employer  pays  2*/2d. 
(5  cents),  the  workman  pays  2j^d.,  and  the  state  adds  i^d. 
(3/<3  cents),  or  one-third  the  total  contribution. 

The  collection  of  the  contributions  on  behalf  of  2,500,000  men 
was  consigned  to  the  Board  of  Trade  to  be  carried  out  through 
the  mechanism  of  the  labor  exchanges.  The  German  method 
was  adopted  whereby  the  employer  is  held  responsible  for  re- 
quiring an  "Unemployment  book"  from  every  insurable  employee 
and  for  placing  therein,  week  by  week,  the  five-penny  insurance 
stamp  which  represents  the  combined  contribution  of  master  and 
man.  The  workman's  wages  are  docked  in  proportion.  The 
law  provides  that  the  premium  rate  may  be  revised  at  intervals 
of  not  less  than  seven  years,  on  condition  that  the  combined 
contribution  of  employer  and  employed  may  not  exceed  seven 
pence  per  week  without  Parliamentary  sanction  and  that  the 
respective  contributions  may  not  be  unequal. 

To  the  existing  functions  of  the  local  labor  exchange — the 
registration  of  the  unemployed  and  the  endeavor  to  find  them 
suitable  employment  was  now  added  the  duty  of  filing  the 
"Unemployment  books"  of  the  men  thrown  out  of  work  in  the 
locality,  registering  their  applications  for  work,  and,  in  case  no 
suitable  work  could  be  provided  paying  their  Unemployment 
benefits.  Each  claim  with  the  necessary  data  is  forwarded  to 
the  provisional  office  to  which  the  local  exchange  belongs,  and 
its  validity  is  there  passed  upon  by  the  insurance  officer  after 
the  employer  is  given  opportunity  to  protest  it. 

No  workman  may  secure  benefit  for  unemployment  due  to  a 
trade  dispute  in  his  shop,  to  misconduct  on  his  part  or  to  his 
voluntary  and  unjustified  departure,  nor  while  he  is  an  inmate 
of  any  prison,  workhouse,  or  other  public  institution,  nor  while 
he  is  in  receipt  of  sickness  or  disablement  benefit  under  Part  I 
of  the  act.  On  the  other  hand,  the  workman  is  not  obliged  to 
accept  employment  in  a  shop  where  the  men  are  on  strike,  nor 
must  he  take  work  at  lower  wages  or  under  conditions  inferior 
to  those  which  he  has  habitually  obtained  or  to  the  standard 
maintained  by  the  trade  union  of  that  district 

Benefit  is  paid  at  the  rate  of  7s  per  week  up  to  a  maximum  of 
fifteen  weeks  in  any  twelve  months.  No  man  may  draw  more 


UNEMPLOYMENT  61 

than  at  the  rate  of  one  week's  benefit  for  five  weeks  contribution. 
To  obviate  hardship  in  the  case  of  the  older  man,  every  employe 
already  at  work  in  an  insured  trade  before  the  initiation  of 
unemployed  insurance  was  credited  with  twenty-five  weeks' 
premium,  i.  e.,  with  five  weeks'  benefit. 

The  law  invites  the  cooperation  of  trade  unions  organized  in 
the  insured  trades  by  permitting  associations  which  pay  Unem- 
ployment benefits  to  their  members  to  recover  from  the  Unem- 
ployment fund  the  amounts  which  the  members  could  have 
drawn  under  the  limitations  of  the  act.  Voluntary  insurance  on 
the  part  of  any  association  outside  the  compulsorily  insured 
trades  is  encouraged  by  the  offer  of  the  government  to  refund 
one-sixth  of  all  such  benefits  not  exceeding  I2s  per  week,  from 
a  special  appropriation — an  arrangement  modeled  upon  the  Ghent 
system  as  adopted  at  Strassburg.  A  considerable  number  of 
trade  unions  have  been  stimulated  to  the  payment  of  Unemployed 
benefits  by  this  offer,  although  the  ratio  of  refund  to  original 
benefit  is  less  than  under  the  Ghent  system  as  carried  on  in 
Belgium,  Holland,  France,  Denmark  or  Norway. 

The  compulsorily  insured  associations  may  participate  in  this 
state  subvention  in  respect  to  benefits  paid  their  members  in 
excess  of  the  required  75  per  week.  For  example,  a  carpenters' 
union  paying  a  weekly  benefit  of  125  to  its  unemployed  members 
may  recover  75  under  Section  105  of  the  act  and  one-sixth  of  the 
excess  or  lod  under  Section  106.  Registration  at  a  labor  ex- 
change is  not  required  of  unions  voluntarily  insured. 

Other  provisions  of  this  well-thought-out  piece  of  legislation 
are  intended  to  reduce  the  amount  of  Unemployment  by  decas- 
ualizing labor.  For  example,  the  premium  rate  is  higher  in 
case  a  man  is  employed  for  less  than  a  week;  two  pence  from 
both  master  and  man  for  two  days'  employment,  and  a  penny 
each  for  one  day  or  less.  On  the  other  hand,  the  employer  may 
claim  a  refund  of  one-third  of  the  contributions  he  has  made 
for  each  man  kept  continuously  employed  during  at  least  forty- 
five  weeks  of  any  one  year.  In  the  case  of  large  establishments 
this  refund  becomes  a  considerable  item. 

Registration  under  the  unemployed  workmen's  insurance  act 
began  on  July  15,  1912,  and  payment  of  benefits  on  January  15, 
1913.  The  total  number  of  Unemployment  books  issued  during 
the  first  year's  operation  was  2,508,939  for  the  compulsorily  in- 
sured trades  (about  10,000  of  these  to  women  and  girls  and 


62  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

100,000  to  boys),  and  172  trade  unions,  with  a  membership  of 
3/6,041,  made  arrangements  to  claim  the  state  subvention  for 
voluntary  insurance. 

In  the  compulsorily  insured  trades,  21  trade  unions,  with  a 
membership  of  86,000,  have  begun  to  make  provision  for  Unem- 
ployment benefit,  which  had  not  contemplated  doing  so  before 
the  passing  of  the  act. 

The  number  of  persons  insured  under  the  voluntary  and 
compulsory  provisions  of  the  act  in  January,  1914,  is  little  less 
than  3,000,000,  or  fully  one-fifth  of  the  total  number  of  wage- 
earners  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

Unemployment  insurance  is  no  panacea  for  the  low-paid 
laborers  of  the  fields  and  the  coal-mines  or  for  the  casual 
laborers  of  the  docks  and  warehouses.  Ben  Tillett,  for  example, 
takes  a  pessimistic  view  of  the  possibilities  of  such  a  remedy  for 
the  woes  of  the  dock-laborers  unless  the  state  subsidy  bears  a 
much  more  generous  ratio  to  the  contributions  of  the  men,  and 
other  leaders  of  the  unskilled  trades  agree  with  this  opinion. 

The  General  Workers'  Union,  like  the  Unskilled  Laborer's 
Union  of  Denmark,  has  thrived  under  the  national  insurance  act. 
The  membership  has  grown  from  20,000  to  100,000  in  the  past 
year  and  the  organizers  expect  soon  to  reach  the  200,000  mark. 
The  organizers  attribute  part  of  this  phenomenal  increase  to  the 
national  insurance  act.  Neither  can  insurance  cope  with  the  sur- 
prisingly large  proportion  of  Unemployment  discovered  among 
"young  persons."  Indeed,  boys  under  eighteen  are  excluded  from 
benefit.  Vocational  guidance  and  industrial  training  are  the  only 
adequate  remedies,  and  some  steps  are  being  taken  by  the  Board 
of  Trade  in  the  way  of  providing  special  direction  of  juvenile 
employes. 

During  the  six  months  following  January  15,  1913,  payments 
on  account  of  unemployed  benefits  to  the  number  of  774,494  were 
made  by  the  labor  exchanges  and  authorized  unions,  amounting 
to  £236,458,  i.  e.,  the  claim  allowed  averaged  £9,100  per  week. 
Since  the  contributions  of  employers,  men  and  state  combined, 
were  coming  in  at  the  rate  of  from  £43,000  to  £44,000  a  week, 
there  was,  at  the  end  of  the  first  six  months'  operation,  an  unex- 
pended balance  of  £1,610,000,  after  10  per  cent  of  the  revenue 
had  been  deducted  to  meet  the  expenses  of  administration,  a  most 
satisfactory  outcome. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  63 

The  number  of  old-age  pensioners  for  England  and  Wales 
during  1912  was  642,524,  less  than  the  number  of  unemployed 
beneficiaries  of  unemployed  insurance,  but  the  payments  on  this 
account  amounted  to  £7,948,016. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  1913,  the  initial  year  of  Unem- 
ployment benefits,  was  a  period  of  extraordinary  prosperity  for 
English  trade,  and  that  the  percentage  of  Unemployment  was 
consequently  unusually  low — lower,  indeed,  than  had  been 
recorded  by  the  trade  unions  for  twenty  years  previous.  No 
serious  strain,  therefore,  has  yet  been  imposed  upon  the  Unem- 
ployment fund.  The  next  financial  depression  will  determine 
whether  the  rate  of  premium  must  be  raised  and  the  ratio  of  the 
state  contribution  increased  in  order  to  guarantee  the  continuous 
payment  of  benefits  and  whether  it  may  not  be  necessary  to 
resort  to  some  of  the  preventive  measures  recommended  by  the 
Minority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  strain  on  the  resources  of  the  labor 
exchanges  has  been  very  great,  and  it  is  most  fortunate  that 
three  years'  experience  had  brought  that  elaborate  mechanism 
to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency. 

The  working  force  proved  adequate  to  the  test,  and  the  in- 
suring of  two  and  a  half  million  men  against  Unemployment  has 
been  accomplished  with  the  minimum  of  friction.  With  English 
reticence  W.  H.  Beveridge,  director  of  labor  exchanges,  contents 
himself  with  the  modest  statement  that  "compulsory  state  insur- 
ance against  Unemployment  in  scheduled  trades  appears  to  be 
administratively  practicable.  No  insoluble  difficulties  have  pre- 
sented themselves  as  regards  the  definition  and  the  test  of 
Unemployment.  Some  sort  of  demarcation  of  the  insured  trades 
has  been  effected." 

The  burden  of  work  imposed  upon  the  employers  and  trade 
unions  cooperating  with  the  labor  exchanges  under  the  insurance 
act  was  also  very  heavy.  Large  business  firms  had  to  add  two 
or  three  clerks  to  their  office  staff,  and  the  secretaries  of  the  thou- 
sands of  union  offices  were  fairly  swamped  under  the  unfamiliar 
forms  and  figures.  The  policy  of  the  Board  of  Trade  is  to 
encourage  the  keeping  of  "Unemployment  books"  and  "vacant 
books"  at  the  labor  exchanges,  so  that  one  source  of  complaint  of 
extra  labor  may  be  obviated. 

Overt  opposition  to  Unemployment  insurance  on  the  part  of 
the  employers  and  men  concerned  has  thus  far  been  surprisingly 


64  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

slight — far  less,  indeed,  than  to  the  sickness  insurance  prescribed 
under  the  same  act.  Several  of  the  trade  unions  had  long  been 
accustomed  to  pay  unemployed  benefit,  and  their  members  were 
accustomed  to  this  form  of  foresight.  The  business  firms  in- 
volved were,  moreover  large-scale  employers  for  the  most  part, 
who  could  add  this  item  to  the  cost  of  production  without 
jeopardizing  profits.  Under  health  insurance,  on  the  contrary, 
thousands  of  small  employers  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
housewives  were  affected,  and  they  bitterly  resent  the  tax  upon 
their  pocketbooks. 

The  general  public  has  not  yet  the  data  on  which  to  formulate 
any  consensus  of  opinion,  but  the  testimony  of  trade  union 
leaders  is  quite  clear  on  certain  points.  The  younger  men,  who 
are  apt  to  be  Socialists,  protest  that  the  workmen  should  make 
no  contribution  to  insurance  against  Unemployment,  but  that  the 
state  should  pay  the  benefits  out  of  taxes  on  property.  They 
demand  that  the  requirement  should  be  made  universal  and  non- 
contributory,  at  least  so  far  as  the  men  whose  wage  is  less  than 
twenty  shillings  a  week  are  concerned. 

Some  of  the  old  trade  unionists,  on  the  other  hand,  think  the 
regulations  of  the  national  insurance  act  inferior  to  the  former 
union  methods.  The  pooling  of  the  unequal  risks  of  different 
trades  appears  to  them  bad  insurance.  Groups  of  workers  sub- 
ject to  frequent  Unemployment  become  parasites  upon  the  low- 
risk  trades.  In  requiring  a  flat  rate  of  every  type  of  risk  the 
principle  of  mutuality  is  stretched  too  far.  The  well-paid  work- 
man could  afford  a  larger  contribution  while  the  low-paid  man 
cannot  give  so  much.  The  dock-laborers,  for  example,  pay  a 
union  due  of  three  pence  a  week  which  must  cover  strike  benefit, 
sick  benefit,  etc.,  and  which  cannot  cover  the  risk  of  Unemploy- 
ment in  their  highly  uncertain  occupation.  Moreover,  the  legis- 
lative benefit  of  seven  shillings  a  week  is  regarded  as  insufficient 
and  the  limitation  of  payment  to  fifteen  weeks  in  any  one  year 
and  to  one  week  of  benefit  for  five  weeks  of  contribution  is 
deemed  unnecessarily  severe.  The  trade  union  regulations  were 
more  liberal  because  the  accumulation  of  a  reserve  fund  was  not 
considered  essential. 

The  men  complain  that  the  delays  involved  in  getting  claims 
approved  by  the  divisional  offices  is  often  a  serious  hardship  and 
that  the  reference  of  every  claim  to  the  employer  for  verification 
often  works  injustice  where  the  master  or  his  foreman  are  hos- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  65 

tile  to  the  individual  in  question.  In  such  case  the  union  officials 
would  sustain  the  man's  right  to  aid. 

The  severest  critics  of  the  law  concede,  however,  that  the 
provision  that  the  unemployed  need  not  accept  a  job  rendered 
vacant  by  a  strike  or  offering  lower  wages  or  inferior  conditions 
to  those  established  by  his  trade  union,  is  faithfully  observed  by 
the  officials  of  the  labor  exchanges  and  that  the  general  effect 
is  a  better  maintenance  of  the  union  rates  than  when  men  were 
forced  by  starvation  to  accept  a  competitive  wage. 

The  fact  that  in  February,  1914,  337  trade  unions  with  a  mem- 
bership of  1,164,000,  had  complied  with  the  act,  and  that  more 
than  half  of  these  were  for  voluntary  insurance,  indicates  the 
favorable  attitude  of  the  labor  men. 

The  employers  consulted  have  treated  the  Unemployment 
premium  as  an  establishment  charge  which  could  easily  be  borne 
in  a  prosperous  year.  The  smaller  firms  may  well  have  felt  the 
pinch  of  an  annual  assessment  of  los  5d  ($2.50)  per  man  em- 
ployed, but  they  have  made  no  organized  protest.  It  is  pretty 
generally  recognized  that  the  new  tax  on  industry  is  likely  to 
be  a  permanent  one. 

I.  W.  Chubb,  English  editor  of  the  American  Machinist, 
states  the  fundamental  argument.  "If  a  reserve  of  labor  is  really 
necessary  for  a  given  industry  .  .  .  then — that  reserve  should 
be  supported  by  the  whole  of  that  industry,  and  not  merely  by 
the  workmen.  In  short,  each  industry  should  be  self-supporting, 
as  completely  as  possible." 

Employers  and  employed  are  given  a  share  in  the  management 
of  the  exchanges.  They  are  represented,  equally  with  the  work- 
men, on  the  courts  of  referees,  but  in  case  the  insurance  officer 
disagrees  the  decision  may  be  appealed  to  the  umpire.  The 
employers'  federation  urges  its  members  to  report  adversely 
wherever  Unemployment  is  due  to  misconduct  or  to  any  other 
disqualifying  reason,  in  order  to  reduce  by  so  much  the  charges 
upon  the  fund;  but  not  more  than  one  in  six  of  the  employers 
consulted  takes  the  trouble  to  fill  out  the  Unemployment  blank 
and  return  it  to  the  exchange. 

Well-informed  critics  of  the  compulsory  insurance  measure 
such  as  I.  G.  Gibbon  and  W.  H.  Bailward,  chairman  of  the  Beth- 
nal  Green  Board  of  Guardians,  distrust  the  policy  of  compulsory 
insurance  as  alien  to  British  traditions  and  likely  to  demoralize 
the  men  concerned. 


66  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

"Compulsion  must  profoundly  affect  the  character  of  the 
people,"  says  Bailward,  "rich  and  poor,  employers  and  employed, 
for  good  or  ill.  The  real  question  is,  how,  in  the  long  run,  will 
it  affect  habits  of  industry  and  self-reliance?  How  will  it  affect 
the  sentiments  of  good  will  and  fraternity  amongst  all  classes? 
.  .  .  If,  as  many  fear  will  be  the  case,  it  tends  to  breed  ill 
will,  if  it  tends  to  impair  personal  initiative  and  responsibility 
and  to  foster  idleness,  malingering  and  deception,  then,  though 
it  may  for  the  moment  force  a  number  of  people  into  statutory 
insurance  who  have  not  been  insured  before,  yet  it  is  bound 
ultimately,  by  lowering  the  character  of  the  people,  to  produce 
disasters  far  worse  than  any  which  we  have  now  to  bear." 

It  is  quite  too  early  to  judge  as  to  the  effect  upon  national 
character  of  this  experiment  in  "help  of  self-help,"  but  as  to 
malingering,  and  falsification,  only  forty-seven  cases  were  re- 
ported among  the  415,788  claims  that  came  before  the  divisional 
offices  during  the  first  six  months'  operation.  The  criticism  that 
insurance  cannot  relieve  the  low-paid  men  and  the  under-em- 
ployed and  that  work  is  a  better  panacea  than  benefits,  would 
hardly  be  disputed  by  the  most  ardent  champions  of  the  scheme, 
but  the  same  statement  would  hold  of  voluntary  insurance  on 
the  Ghent  plan.  The  authors  of  the  national  insurance  act  did 
not  expect  that  insurance  would  meet  the  whole  need  and  they 
relied  rather  upon  the  work  of  the  employment  bureaus  and 
projects  for  industrial  training. 

Experts  are  agreed  that  Unemployment  should  be  regarded 
as  a  disease  of  the  present  industrial  order  which  must  be  corn- 
batted  at  every  point.  It  is  not  enough  to  provide  relief  for 
the  ailing.  We  must  inaugurate  measures  of  prevention  in  the 
endeavor  to  abolish  the  evil,  just  as  a  board  of  health  combats 
contagion  or  a  school  board  combats  ignorance.  "Fifty  years 
hence,"  says  the  Minority  Poor  Law  Report,  "we  shall  be  looking 
back  with  amazement  at  the  helpless  and  ignorant  acquiescence 
of  the  governing  classes  ...  in  the  constant  debasement  of 
character  and  physique,  not  to  mention  the  perpetual  draining 
away  of  the  nation's  wealth,  that  idleness  combined  with  starva- 
tion plainly  causes." 


UNEMPLOYMENT  67 

Craftsman.    27:708-10.    March,  1915 

Gardens  and  the  Unemployed 

If  the  miracle  which  the  garden  could  work  were  fully  com- 
prehended, if  it  were  taken  in  the  right  spirit,  it  would  not 
only  furnish  occupation  without  sentimentality,  but  it  would 
lessen  throughout  the  world  that  thing  most  subversive  of  moral- 
ity— idleness.  The  unemployed  are  likely  sooner  or  later  to 
accept  idleness  as  a  necessity.  The  two  most  disintegrating  evils 
in  modern  civic  conditions  are  idleness  and  charity,  for  idleness 
forces  charity  from  the  sentimental  and  charity  produces  idleness 
in  the  ignorant.  Dionysius,  the  elder,  must  have  realized  this 
when  he  replied,  to  one  who  asked  him  whether  he  were  at 
leisure,  "God  forbid  that  it  should  ever  befall  me."  There  can 
be  no  development  in  civic  progress  where  any  number  of  the 
citizens  are  idle;  whether  the  idle  are  rich  or  poor,  makes  no 
difference.  Always  when  the  body  and  mind  and  soul  are 
unemployed  the  nation  suffers. 

We  must  see  work  in  its  true  light,  we  must  see  "that  honest 
labor  bears  a  lovely  face,"  if  we  are  to  meet  our  problems  in 
America  by  the  development  of  gardens  in  America.  If  we  are 
to  reduce  complexities  and  anxieties  of  civilization  to  order  and 
beauty  it  must  be  through  something  as  simple  and  natural  as 
garden  making.  "Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things,  let 
nature  be  your  teacher,"  wrote  Wordsworth,  and  we  shall  find 
after  all  our  mistakes  and  our  wanderings  that  as  a  nation  it 
is  to  the  universal  mother  we  must  go  if  we  are  to  find  a  wise 
and  sane  fulfilment  of  our  democratic  aspirations. 

Here  in  America  it  was  through  our  original  great  need  of 
organization,  of  capital,  or  machine-made  commodities  that 
forced  upon  us  a  world  of  cities,  of  machines,  of  books,  of 
things;  and  this  has  become  so  powerful  (in  answer  to  our 
great  need)  that  we  are  almost  in  the  position  of  being  managed 
by  the  terrific  forces  that  we  have  created. 

But  alas,  when  we  turn  to  this  dynamic  storehouse  of  food 
necessities,  of  shelter,  of  mechanical  energy,  and  ask  it  for 
beauty  of  mind,  for  spiritual  wisdom,  for  strength  of  body,  for 
inspiration  that  our  poets  and  artists  may  live,  we  are  astonished 
and  wounded  to  find  that  it  gives  us  no  response,  that  it  stands 
above  us  and  about  us,  immeasurable,  implacable,  immovable. 
It  is  only  when  we  turn  away  from  this  man-made  world  and 


68  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

move  back  into  our  gardens,  when  we  get  up  with  the  sun  in 
the  morning,  and  till  the  soil,  when  we  watch  the  seeds  develop, 
the  stalks  springing  up,  blossoms  opening,  that  we  find  again 
real  loveliness,  real  solace  for  our  spirits,  and  "thoughts  that 
often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

All  over  America  today  there  is  an  enormously  increased 
demand  for  the  product  of  the  ground;  nature  is  in  need  of 
laborers  as  never  before.  We  ourselves  are  complaining  of  the 
cost  of  living,  we  need  more  fruit,  more  garden  truck,  an  enor- 
mously increased  wheat  production,  we  need  the  quick  raising 
of  poultry,  live  stock  that  will  give  us  speedy  returns.  There 
has  never  been  a  time  in  America's  history  when  such  enormous 
and  profitable  opportunities  have  been  offered  to  the  gardener 
and  the  farmer.  If  we  could  turn  the  tide  of  all  our  surplus 
city  population  toward  our  rural  districts,  labor  would  be  found 
for  every  man,  woman  and  child,  profitable  labor,  and  in  addition 
to  that,  a  better  way  of  livng — health  for  the  children,  good 
schools  and  the  use  of  humanity  for  the  actual  betterment  of 
the  whole  world.  And  yet  we  hesitate  and  we  form  societies 
and  organizations  to  support  the  people  out  of  work,  instead 
of  forming  societies  and  organizations  to  teach  them  where 
work  lies,  to  help  them  to  get  to  it,  to  train  them  to  understand 
and  believe  in  it. 

It  is  our  own  fault  if  our  cities  are  over-populated  with  the 
poor  and  the  weak.  We  do  not  tell  them  the  truth,  we  do  not 
make  them  understand  what  the  garden  holds  for  them.  We 
are  forever  talking  of  our  factories,  we  take  our  beautiful 
young  life  and  thrust  it  into  our  sweatshops,  we  destroy  by 
these  very  sweatshops  and  by  our  charity  bureaus  what  we 
should  develop  for  the  nation's  wealth.  And  when  I  say  the 
nation's  wealth,  I  mean  the  mental  and  spiritual  wealth  of 
America,  as  well  as  the  increase  of  her  gold.  We  need  schools 
and  societies  and  lectures  to  remind  the  people  of  every  city  in 
the  Union  that  America  is  essentially  an  agricultural  land,  that 
we  should  be  a  people  of  the  vastest  agricultural  interest  in  the 
world  and  that  our  foremost  citizens  should  be  our  gardeners, 
our  shepherds,  our  laborers  in  the  vineyard. 

We  cannot  expect  our  poor,  our  sick,  our  unfit,  our  hungry 
in  the  city  to  get  together  and  say  how  fine  a  thing  it  would 
be  to  live  in  the  country,  to  train  their  children  to  be  contented 
farmers — this  is  quite  beyond  them;  we  have  only  to  realize 
how  far  it  is  beyond  ourselves  even  as  thinking  people.  It  is 


UNEMPLOYMENT  69 

our  business  today  if  we  know  how  to  think,  to  go  among 
these  people  with  the  message,  to  find  out  just  what  openings 
there  are  throughout  the  country,  just  what  can  be  done  with 
the  city's  hungry  surplus,  to  form  a  connection  between  them 
and  the  new  rural  life  and  see  to  it  that  not  only  is  it  made 
possible  for  them  to  become  a  part  of  this  life,  but  to  help 
them  see  the  truth  so  that  they  want  to  get  there,  and  that 
after  they  reach  the  promised  land,  it  shall  in  truth  make  good 
to  them. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  imagine  anything  more  horrible 
than  that  we  should  awaken  in  the  poor  and  needy  a  love  of 
the  country,  that  we  should  tell  them  the  realities  of  what  it 
holds  for  them  and  then  in  some  dreadful  way  gather  them  up 
and  take  them  away  to  nature's  heart  only  to  exploit  them  for 
man's  gain.  This  has  been  done  many  times  to  the  poor  who 
come  to  us  from  other  lands  full  of  hope  and  courage.  We 
have  exploited  them  in  our  mines,  in  our  railroads,  in  our 
sweatshops;  but  let  us  make  good  to  them  in  our  gardens;  let 
nature  recompense  them  and  reward  them  for  coming  to  us;  let 
nature  feed  them  when  our  cities  fail,  let  our  gardens  grow  to 
be  not  only  the  hope  of  the  poor,  but  the  hope  of  the  nation. 

At  the  very  start  we  could  begin  this  work,  in  fact  it  has 
already  been  begun,  by  finding  vacant  city  lots,  roofs  and  back- 
yards in  which  the  city  poor  may  work.  This  can  be  done  with 
profit  to  the  city,  with  wages  for  the  poor;  and  if  such  work  is 
properly  supervised,  the  first  lesson  in  gardening  to  men,  women 
and  children  can  be  given  in  the  environment  of  the  city  in 
which  they  have  been  starving.  Already  this  has  been  proved 
practicable,  and  if  the  mayor  of  every  town,  the  civic  improve- 
ment societies,  the  schools,  the  employment  bureaus,  the  owners 
of  vacant  land,  the  public  spirited,  young  and  old,  would  join 
hands  in  a  Universal  Garden  Movement,  nothing  could  stay 
the  success  of  the  work.  The  bread  line  would  become  an  ugly 
tradition  and  charity  organization  a  forgotten  blight  on  our 
civilization.  It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  of  what  would  be 
accomplished  in  the  way  of  actual  health  and  strength  and  con- 
tentment. Every  child  belongs  in  a  garden  and  every  woman 
who  is  doing  her  own  housework  has  a  right  to  look  through 
the  window  of  her  kitchen  out  into  her  garden,  and  every  man 
who  cares  for  his  wife  and  children  should  eventually  become 
a  landowner  with  his  house  resting  on  the  soil  which  he  has 
won  by  his  own  activity.  We  have  come  a  long  way  from  such 
8 


70  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

a  condition  as  this,  but  the  final  prosperity  of  the  country 
demands  a  return  to  it,  or  possibly,  an  advance  to  it,  for  we 
do  not  wish  to  see  again  the  old,  sordid,  sad  New  England 
farming  days  in  which  the  people  and  the  soil  seemed  struggling 
one  against  the  other.  We  want  the  new  garden  spirit,  where 
the  people  cultivate  what  the  world  needs  and  the  world  in 
return  gives  abundantly  to  the  source  of  its  comfort  and  profit. 


Chicago  Municipal  Markets  Commission  Report:  p.  10-15.  I9I4 

The  Number  of  Unemployed 

Very  little  attention  has  been  given  to  the  gathering  of 
statistics  on  the  subject  of  Unemployment  in  the  United  States. 
Such  statistics  as  have  been  gathered  should  be  examined  with 
considerable  caution,  both  as  to  their  reliability  and  the  deduc- 
tions which  may  be  inferred  from  the  same. 

It  is  not  intended  in  this  report  to  extensively  treat  of  the 
number  of  the  unemployed,  save  to  point  out  certain  prominent 
characteristics  of  the  problem  as  shown  by  the  statistics  thus 
far  collected  on  the  subject.  Estimates  intended  to  show  the 
number  of  jobless  men  and  women  cannot  even  be  called  ap- 
proximately correct  or  exact.  It  has  been  well  stated  that  the 
real  number  of  the  unemployed  in  the  United  States,  or  in  any 
city,  is  known  to  no  one,  nor  can  anyone  know  from  the  present 
tabulated  facts.  Whatever  statistics  have  been  gathered  are 
mere  indications,  far  from  complete,  of  the  vastness  and  the 
gravity  of  the  problem  of  Unemployment. 

In  endeavoring  to  give  the  number  of  the  unemployed  in  the 
United  States,  it  should  be  premised  that  on  account  of  the 
scarcity  of  statistical  data  available  at  the  present  time  on  this 
subject,  any  estimate  which  may  be  made  for  the  United  States 
as  a  whole,  or  for  the  city  of  Chicago,  should  be  considered 
as  indicating  but  relatively  the  amount  of  possible  Unemploy- 
ment. The  source  of  statistical  information  on  the  subject  of 
Unemployment  in  the  United  States  during  recent  years  are 
chiefly  the  following : 

1.  The  United  States  census  reports. 

2.  A  report  on  the  cost  of  living  contained  in  the  Eighteenth 
Annual  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor. 

3.    Reports  of  Unemployment  among  organized  workmen  in 


UNEMPLOYMENT  71 

New  York  and  in  Massachusetts,  issued  by  the  Department  of 
Labor  in  New  York,  and  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  in  Massa- 
chusetts. 

4.    Reports  of  unofficial  bodies  and  persons. 

The  statistics  on  Unemployment  collected  by  the  United 
States  Census  Bureau  are  very  meager  and  are  accompanied  with 
a  careful  warning  by  the  bureau  as  to  their  reliability.  The 
United  States  census  reports  for  1890  and  1900  gave  the  num- 
ber of  persons  ten  years  of  age  and  over  who  were  ordinarily 
engaged  in  remunerative  labor.  These  returns  do  not  indicate 
what  proportion  of  the  population  is  habitually  out  of  work 
on  account  of  incapacity,  unwillingness  to  work,  or  constant 
inability  to  find  work. 

The  statistics  show  that  in  1890,  there  were  23,318,183  persons 
ten  years  of  age  and  over  engaged  in  gainful  occupations.  Of 
this  number,  3,523,730  persons,  or  15.1  per  cent  of  the  total  were 
unemployed.  In  1900,  the  total  number  of  persons  ten  years 
of  age  and  over  engaged  in  gainful  occupations,  as  reported  by 
the  census,  was  29,073,233,  and  of  this  number  6,468,964  persons, 
or  22.3  per  cent  of  the  total  number,  were  unemployed.  The 
1900  census,  showing  the  number  of  unemployed  persons  in  the 
United  States,  found  that  of  the  5,227,472  males  unemployed 
during  the  census  year,  2,593,136,  or  49.6  per  cent  of  the 
total  number,  were  unemployed  from  one  to  three  months 
during  the  year;  2,069,546  persons,  or  39.6  per  cent  of  the 
total  number,  were  unemployed  from  four  to  six  months 
during  the  year,  while  564,790  persons,  or  10.8  per  cent  of  the 
total  number,  were  unemployed  from  seven  to  twelve  months 
during  the  entire  year.  Of  the  1,241,492  women  unemployed 
during  the  1900  census  year,  it  was  found  that  548,617,  or  47.1 
per  cent  of  the  total  number,  were  unemployed  from  one  to 
three  months  during  that  year;  45,379,  or  39.1  per  cent,  were 
unemployed  from  four  to  six  months,  while  171,496,  or  13.8  per 
cent,  were  unemployed  from  seven  to  twelve  months.  These 
figures  are  briefly  summarized  in  the  census  report  thus : 

It  appears  that  approximately  four  persons  out  of  five  who  claim  gain- 
ful occupations  were  continuously  employed  throughout  the  census  year, 
while  the  fifth  person  was  idle  for  a  period  varying  from  one  to  twelve 
months. 

There  is  no  means  of  knowing  from  the  above  figures  what 
per  cent  of  these  persons  was  idle  from  choice  and  what  per 


72  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

cent  wanted  work  and  was  unable  to  secure  it.  The  figures  in- 
clude all  persons  ten  years  of  age  and  over  ordinarily  employed, 
and  so  include  many  children  attending  school  for  a  part  of  the 
year.  The  general  report  and  analysis  of  the  Census  Bureau  of 
Manufactures  in  the  United  States  in  the  year  1909  contains 
data  which  may  be  considered  in  a  study  of  the  amount  of 
Unemployment.  The  number  of  persons  employed  during  the 
census  year  in  all  manufacturing  industries  is  shown  in  the 
census  report,  while  the  fluctuations  in  the  monthly  demand  for 
workers  in  manufacturing  industries  do  not  show  how  many  are 
unemployed  during  any  month,  inasmuch  as  these  may  find 
work  in  other  branches  of  trade  and  industry.  They  do  show, 
however,  seasonal,  discontinuous  demand  for  labor  and  for 
this  reason  are  valuable. 

The  following  table  shows  by  months  the  number  of  wage 
earners  reported  for  all  manufacturing  industries  in  the  United 
States  in  the  year  1909: 

Wage  Earners  in  Manufacturing  Industries  in  the  United  States 

in  1909 

Number 

Per  cent  of    of  Un- 

Month                                  Number  Maximum  employed 

January   6,210,063  88.6  796,790 

February 6,297,627  89.9  709,226 

March    6,423,517  91.7  583,336 

April    6,437,633  91.9  569,220 

May   6,457,279  92.2  549,574 

June  6,517,469  93.0  489,384 

July    6,486,676  92.6  520,177 

August 6,656,933  95.0  349,920 

September 6,898,765  98.5  108,088 

October  6,997,090  99.9  9,763 

November   7,006,853  100.0          

December    6,990,652  99.8  16,201 

According  to  this  table  the  maximum  number  of  wage 
earners  reported  as  unemployed  in  manufacturing  industries  was 
7,006,853  during  the  month  of  November  and  the  smallest 
number,  6,210,063,  in  January,  being  796,790,  or  11.4  per  cent, 
less  than  the  total  number  employed  in  the  maximum  month  of 
November.  During  the  year  there  was  a  fairly  constant  increase 
in  employment  from  January  to  November,  except  that  the 
number  employed  in  July  was  a  little  lower  than  in  June.  This 
increase  doubtless  resulted,  in  part,  from  a  normal  growth  of 


UNEMPLOYMENT  73 

industry  during  the  year,  and,  in  part,  from  the  general  improve- 
ment in  industrial  conditions  which  took  place  particularly 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  year.  The  number  employed  during 
the  maximum  month  of  employment,  November,  does  not  indi- 
cate all  persons  seeking  a  livelihood  in  manufacturing  industries, 
inasmuch  as  some  workers  were  necessarily  unemployed  during 
this  same  month  on  account  of  sickness,  disability  or  strikes 
and  probably  some  were  unable  to  obtain  work. 

The  Department  of  Labor  of  the  state  of  New  York  has 
published  data  showing  the  extent  of  Unemployment  among 
organized  workers  in  that  state  for  a  continuous  period  extend- 
ing from  March,  1897,  to  the  present  time.  These  statistics,  it 
must  be  kept  in  mind,  are  of  two  classes,  namely,  those  fur- 
nished by  certain  selected  or  representative  unions,  numbering 
about  two  hundred,  and  constituting  about  one-fourth  of  the 
total  organized  workingmen  in  the  state,  and  those  furnished  by 
all  unions  in  the  state.  The  enumeration  classifies  idleness  into 
three  divisions,  such  as  idleness  due  to  labor  disputes,  disability, 
and  to  Unemployment,  which  is  principally  due  to  lack  of  work. 
For  the  purposes  of  this  report,  it  is  but  necessary  to  consider 
the  statistics  relating  to  the  last  classification.  These  statistics 
reflect  the  demand  for  labor,  inasmuch  as  the  leading  causes  of 
such  idleness,  due  to  lack  of  work,  are  general  and  seasonal 
industrial  and  business  conditions.  Below  is  given  a  com- 
parative table,  showing  the  monthly  percentages  of  idleness,  due 
to  lack  of  work,  in  representative  unions  in  New  York  state: 

Mean 
for 
Year  Jan.  Feb.  Mar.  Apr.  May  June  July  Aug.  Sept.  Oct.  Nov.  Dec.  Year 

1904 22.0    18.8  18.9   12.7   10.9   10.8     8.6     7-7     6.3     6.4     7-1   iS-4  ^.i 

1905 18.0    15.3   14.6     8.2     5.9     6.7     6.3     5.4     4.4     3-6     4-0     9-2     8.5 

1906 n.8    12.4     8.9     5.0     4.1     3.2     4.7     4.0     4.3     4-5     5-3   13-3     6.8 

1907 19.0    17.4  15.5     8.5     7.7     6.2     5.4     7.7     9.6  16.1  20.0  30.5   13.6 

1908 3S.I     35-9    35-9    32.2    30.6    28.6    25.2    22.2    23.0    21.3    20.0    2S.9    28.0 

1909 26.4    24.6    21.2    I5.I     12.7    I3.I     10.0       8.2    II.O       9.6      9-5    17.7    14-9 

1910 16.5    15.5   17.4  12.6  ii.8  11.7     8.1     7.5     8.4  13.4  15.0  25-6  13.6 

1911 24.9  22.9  24.1  19.6  24.0  17.7  13.1    9.5    8.9    9.8  17.6  31.9  18.7 

1912 24.4    16.1   17.4  11.9   18.5  21.0  19.0     6.3     4.9     6.0  14.1  23.1   15.2 

1913 17.5    13.2  20.7  20.4  21.7  20.9   19.7  18.2  15.0  18.1  26.1  38.8  20.9 

1914 31.0  29.3  26.5  22.4  21.4  24.3 25-8* 

n  Mean  for  six  months. 

The  foregoing  statistics  show  that  the  greatest  lack  of  work 
in  the  trade  unions  occurred  during  the  six-months'  period  from 


74  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

October  I  to  April  i,  after  which  period  normal  business  and 
trade  conditions  again  prevailed.  They  also  show  that  no 
matter  how  favorable  such  business  and  trade  conditions  may  be, 
there  still  is  a  considerable  residuum  of  Unemployment,  due  to 
lack  of  work,  even  in  the  best  years. 

Emphasis  is  also  given  to  the  claim  made  before  your  com- 
mission that  during  every  decade  there  are  two  years  of  unusual 
Unemployment.  Mr.  William  M.  Leiserson,  formerly  superin- 
tendent of  the  Wisconsin  Free  Employment  Offices,  and  the 
expert  investigator  of  the  New  York  State  Committee  on 
Unemployment,  stated,  at  a  public  hearing  of  your  commission, 
that: 

Out  of  every  ten  years — it  does  not  make  any  difference  what  ten  years 
— two  bad  years  will  be  noted  of  more  or  less  depression  in  industries  and 
of  people  who  are  out  of  work. 

The  striking  phenomenon  is  brought  out  by  the  New  York 
statistics  of  a  return  at  fairly  regular  intervals  of  periods  of 
high  Unemployment.  The  table  indicates  that  union  labor  in 
New  York  State  experienced  two  periods  of  high  Unemploy- 
ment during  the  decade  from  1900  to  1910,  one  period  of  maxi- 
mum Unemployment  being  in  1903  and  1904  and  another  begin- 
ning in  1907  and  extending  through  the  year  1908  into  1909. 
Between  these  years  of  high  Unemployment  there  was  a  period 
of  low  Unemployment.  From  the  middle  of  1909  to  the  end  of 
1912,  the  percentage  of  idleness  was  relatively  low.  The  sta- 
tistics furnished  to  the  New  York  State  Department  of  Labor 
by  all  labor  unions  in  the  state  show  the  causes  of  idleness  in 
all  labor  organizations  at  the  end  of  the  months  of  March  and 
September,  during  the  years  1910-1913,  with  the  percentages  for 
each  class  of  idleness  during  these  years: 

Causes  of  Idleness  in  All  Labor  Organizations 
Cause  , Number ,          . Percentage . 

IQIO    IQII    1912     1913       I9IO   I9II   1912   1913 

End  of  March- 
Lack  of  work 42,010  79,866  71,813  78,196  66.8  82.7  80.0  80.2 

Lack  of  material 2,667  548  476  1,364  4.2  0.6  0.5  1.4 

Weather   7,329  8,544  8,834  5,799  "-7  .8.8  9.8  6.0 

Labor  disputes 6,864  3,289  4,197  7,025  10.9  3.4  4.7  7-2 

Disability    3,838  3,752  4,086  4,328  6.1  3.9  4.6  4.4 

Other  causes 56  450  133  651  o.i  0.4  0.2  0.7 

Cause  not  stated 87  159  179  135  0.2  0.2  0.2  o.i 


Total 62,851  96,608  89,718  97,498       100.0  100.0  100.0  100.0 


Lack  of  material  .  . 
Weather 

.  .  .  2,450        680        279        667 
.    .       163         493         237        493 

17  646     5,699     6,057      1,855 

Disability 

3  216     3  336     3,199     4,321 

181         128           93         248 

Cause  not  stated.  . 

143          95         166          70 

UNEMPLOYMENT  75 

Cause  . Number . Percentage > 

1910      1911       1912      1913  1910   1911    1912   1913 

End  of  September — 

62.3  79.3  71.1  92.4 
3.9  J.3  0.8  0.7 

0.2          1.0         0.7         0.5 

28.0  11.3  17.4  1.8 
5.1  6.6  9-2  4-3 
0.3  0.3  0.3  0.2 

0.2         O.2         0.5         O.I 

Total 63,106  50,390  34,829101,149      100.0  100.0  100.0  100.0 

The  foregoing  table  shows  the  predominant  cause  of  idleness 
among  the  trade  unions  in  New  York  state  during  the  fall  and 
winter  months  is  lack  of  work.  These  statistics  but  corroborate 
the  assertion  made  by  Mr.  John  Fitzpatrick,  president  of  the 
Chicago  Federation  of  Labor,  at  a  public  hearing  of  this  com- 
mission, that: 

During  the  summer  months,  or  from  April  until  November,  conditions 
among  the  organized  trades  are  very  good,  unless  in  the  case  of  a  big  strike 
or  a  disturbing  influence  of  that  character. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  figures  shown  in  the  last 
table  include  all  union  workers  in  the  state  of  New  York  who, 
on  December  31,  1913,  numbered  627,094,  belonging  to  approxi- 
mately 2,500  different  unions. 

While  the  New  York  figures  tend  to  establish  the  probability 
that  periods  of  high  Unemployment  will  recur  every  four  or 
five  years,  they  do  not,  however,  clearly  bring  out  the  fact  that 
Unemployment  is  by  no  means  constant,  but  that  it  varies  from 
month  to  month  with  each  season  of  the  year  and  from  year 
to  year.  That  the  wage  earner  is  more  or  less  at  the  mercy 
of  business  and  trade  fluctuations  should  disprove  the  statement 
often  made  that  all  men  and  women  who  desire  work  can  obtain 
it,  and  that  those  who  are  idle  and  able  to  work,  are  idle 
from  choice.  If  the  Unemployment  of  able-bodied  human  beings 
were  due  solely  to  laziness  or  unwillingness  to  work,  the  number 
of  the  unemployed  would  palpably  remain  about  constant,  not 
many  more  persons  being  sick,  disabled,  or  lazy  in  winter  than 
in  summer,  and  it  is  evident  that  there  were  no  more  in  this 
class  in  1904  and  1908  than  in  the  intervening  years;  still  from 
two  to  three  times  as  many  trade  unionists  in  New  York  and  in 
Massachusetts  were  idle  at  the  end  of  March  as  at  the  end  of 


76  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

September,  each  year,  and  only  about  one-half  as  many  were 
idle  in  New  York  in  the  year  1905  as  in  the  year  1904,  while 
the  number  unemployed  in  1906  was  still  lower.  Four  times  as 
many  were  reported  unemployed  in  1908  during  the  last  days  of 
both  March  and  September  as  in  the  year  1906.  Only  4.8  per 
cent  of  all  union  workingmen  in  New  York  state  were  reported 
idle  in  September,  1905,  while  six  months  later,  in  March,  1906, 
the  percentage  was  twice  as  great.  It  is  evident  that  laziness  or 
physical  incapacity  do  not  increase  or  decrease  in  the  ratios  and 
according  to  the  seasons  just  given. 

Labor  conditions  in  New  York  state  require  more  workers  in 
September  than  in  March,  and  the  demands  of  industry  were 
greater  in  the  years  1905-1906-1907  than  in  1904  and  1908.  It 
should  be  noted  that  the  high  Unemployment  among  trade 
unions  during  the  winter  months  is  probably  due  to  the  fact 
that  weather  is  a  very  important  factor  at  this  time. 

The  Committee  on  Unemployment  of  New  York  state  says: 

From  the  evidence  before  us  we  can  say  with  certainty  that  there  are 
at  all  times  able-bodied  wage  earners  out  of  work  in  every  city  of  the  state; 
that  the  number  varies  from  month  to  month  and  from  year  to  year;  that  it 
grows  larger  during  the  winter  and  during  the  years  of  industrial  depression 
and  reaches  tremendous  proportions  every  fifteen  or  twenty  years.  A  con- 
servative estimate  would  be  that  in  ordinary  years  of  business  activity,  the 
lowest  number  out  of  work  is  about  3  per  cent  of  the  wage  earners  regu- 
larly employed  in  the  industries  of  the  state,  while  during  the  winter  months 
the  number  would  rise  to  8  or  10  per  cent.  In  a  year  of  business  depression 
like  1908,  the  number  out  of  work  ranges  from  15  to  30  per  cent. 

This  same  committee,  in  a  census  taken  of  the  number  of 
employees  working  on  the  15th  day  of  each  month  during  the 
year  1909  in  759  industrial  establishments  of  the  state,  found 
that  there  is  considerable  fluctuations  in  the  amount  of  employ- 
ment each  month  during  the  year.  The  following  is  the  table : 

All  Number 

Industries  Unemployed 

Month                                                     1909  1909 

January   321,861  43,362 

February  323*772  41»45i 

March    329,221  36,002 

April    332,952  32,271 

May  335,030  30,193 

June 337,888  27,335 

July    337,824  27,399 


UNEMPLOYMENT  77 

All  Number 

Industries  Unemployed 

Month                                                      1909  1909 

August 340,389  24,834 

September  346,360  18,863 

October   348,104  i7,"9 

November  365,223  

December    363,406  1,817 

Over  95  per  cent  of  the  employers  of  the  industrial  estab- 
lishments enumerated,  stated  that  the  monthly  fluctuation  in 
the  number  of  their  employees  was  due  to  industrial  and  trade 
conditions,  lack  of  orders,  seasonal  work,  and  the  like. 

Mr.  Luke  Grant,  in  the  Annals  of  the  American  Academy 
of  Political  and  Social  Science  for  March,  1909,  gives  statistics 
taken  from  the  official  reports  of  the  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Carpenters  and  Joiners  for  the  year  1908,  which  show  to  what 
extent  its  members  are  unemployed: 

Number  Number  Number 

of  Receiving  Per       Receiving        Per 

Month                                   Members  Full  Benefit  Cent  Partial  Benefit  Cent 

February,   1908 3,496  1,024  29.2             248             7.09 

June,   1908 3,350  356  10.6             233             6.9 

September,  1908   3,123  176  5.6             125             4.0 

Mr.  Grant  observes  that  the  above  statistics  do  not  show 
the  total  number  of  unemployed  because  many  members  of  the 
society  entitled  to  benefits  do  not  claim  them,  and  the  rules 
provide  that  a  member  must  be  four  successive  days  out  of 
employment  before  he  becomes  entitled  to  a  benefit.  These 
figures  therefore  do  not  show  short  periods  of  time  lost  of 
less  than  four  days'  duration,  but  they  do  show  conclusively 
every  idle  workman  for  periods  longer  than  four  days,  and  the 
figures,  in  consequence,  show  the  minimum  amount  of  idleness 
prevailing  in  the  society.  In  reality,  it  is  undoubtedly  consid- 
erably greater. 

Beginning  with  March,  1908,  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of 
Statistics  has  also  obtained  statistics  of  Unemployment  of  or- 
ganized labor.  While  the  Massachusetts  data  is  not  as  complete 
as  that  for  the  state  of  New  York,  still  the  amount  of  Unem- 
ployment is  shown  for  a  given  day.  The  returns  are  received 
from  approximately  66  per  cent  of  the  labor  unions  represent- 
ing, it  is  estimated,  67  per  cent  of  the  aggregate  membership  of 
all  unions  in  the  state.  In  the  following  comparative  statement, 


SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 


data  is  given  showing  the  number  and  membership  of  organiza- 
tions reporting  to  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  since  the  collection 
of  returns  was  inaugurated  and  the  number  of  members  unem- 
ployed owing  to  lack  of  work  or  material : 


Quarters  ending — 

March  3 1,   1908 256 

June  30,  1908 493 

September  30,   1908 651 

December  31,  1908 . ... 770 

March  31,   1909 777 

June  30,  1909 780 

September   30,    1909 797 

December  31,  1909 830 

March  31,   1910 837 

June  30,   1910 841 

September  30,   1910 845 

December  31,   1910 862 

March  31,   1911 889 

June  30,   1911 897 

September  30,  1911 975 

December  31,   1911 905 


Number  Reporting 
Unions    Membership 
66,968 
72,815 
83,969 
102,941 
105,059 
105,944 
113,464 
107,689 
117,082 
121,849 
118,781 
122,621 

122,002 
135,202 
133,540 


Unemployment  Owing  to 
Lack  of  Work  or 

Material 
Members  Percentages 


125,484 


10,832 
9,128 
7,349 

11,302 
9,980 
4,913 
3,873 
5,248 
6,186 
6,570 
4,687 
8,938 
9,120 

5,669 

4,904 

7,568 


1 6.2 

12.5 
8.8 

II.O 

9-5 
4.6 

3-4 
4-9 
5-3 
5-4 
4.0 
7-3 
7-5 
4-2 
3-7 
6.0 


The  percentage  of  Unemployment  owing  to  lack  of  work  or 
material  represents  more  accurately  the  actual  industrial  condi- 
tions than  the  percentage  of  Unemployment  for  all  causes  and 
may  be  considered  as  the  proper  index  of  industrial  prosperity 
or  depression.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  in  a  consideration 
of  the  statistics  shown  in  these  tables,  that  union  men  are 
much  more  likely  to  be  regularly  employed  than  unskilled 
workmen,  and  that,  therefore,  the  per  cent  idle  among  union 
men  is  much  lower  than  among  industrial  workers  as  a  whole. 
However,  the  assertion  has  been  made  that  the  skilled  man 
will  hold  out  for  a  job  in  his  own  particular  line  and  would 
rather  be  unemployed  than  work  below  the  regular  scale  of 
wages,  while  the  unskilled  man  will  take  anything  he  can  find 
and  more  readily  adjust  himself  to  a  fall  in  the  market. 

The  report  made  by  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics 
on  Unemployment  among  Organized  Wage  Earners  for  the 
period  ending  June  30,  1914,  shows  that  the  principal  cause  of 
Unemployment  at  the  close  of  the  first  six  months  of  this  year 
was  lack  of  work  or  material,  the  percentage  of  unemployed 


UNEMPLOYMENT  79 

for  this  cause  being  6.9,  as  compared  with  4.3  June  30,   1913. 
The  following  is  the  table: 

Unemployed  Percentages  Returned 

June  30,  1914  as  Unemployed 
Num-         Percent-    March  31,  June  30, 

Causes  of  Unemployment                ber               ages  1914            1913 

Lack  of  work  or  material 12,576               6.9  9.2               4.3 

Unfavorable  weather :.      530              0.3  0.7              o.i 

Strikes  or  lockouts 1,326               0.7  0.6               0.7 

Disability    (sickness,     accidents     or 

old  age)    2,268              1.2  1.6              1.2 

Other  causes 1,422              0.8  0.8              o.i 

Total   18,122              9.9  12.9              6.4 


American  Labor  Legislation  Review.    4.    May    1914 

Operation  of  Public  Employment  Exchanges  in  the  United  States 

Provision  for  public  employment  exchanges  has  already  been 
made  in  the  United  States  by  nineteen  states  and  by  fifteen 
municipalities.  These,  with  the  year  of  the  law  and  the  number 
and  location  of  the  offices  are: 

Colorado,  1907,  four  offices — Colorado  Springs,  Denver  (two 
offices),  Pueblo. 

Connecticut,  1905,  five  offices — Bridgeport,  Hartford,  New 
Haven,  Norwich,  Waterbury. 

Illinois,  1899,  eight  offices — Chicago  (three  offices),  Rockford, 
Rock  Island,  Springfield,  East  St.  Louis,  Peoria. 

Indiana,  1909,  five  offices — Evansville,  Fort  Wayne,  Indian- 
apolis, South  Bend,  Terre  Haute. 

Kansas,  1901,  one  office — Topeka. 

Kentucky,  1906,  one  office — Louisville. 

Maryland,  1902,  one  office — Baltimore. 

Massachusetts,  1906,  four  offices — Boston,  Fall  River,  Spring- 
field, Worcester. 

Michigan,  1905,  five  offices — Detroit,  Grand  Rapids,  Jackson, 
Kalamazoo,  Saginaw. 

Minnesota,  1905,  three  offices — Duluth,  Minneapolis,  St.  Paul. 

Missouri,  1899,  three  offices — Kansas  City,  St.  Joseph,  St. 
Louis. 

Nebraska,  1897,  one  office — Lincoln. 


8o  UNEMPLOYMENT 

New  York,  1914 — (Not  yet  in  operation.) 

Ohio,  1890,  five  offices — Cincinnati,  Cleveland,  Columbus,  Day- 
ton, Toledo. 

Oklahoma,  1908,  three  offices — Enid,  Muskogee,  Oklahoma 
City. 

Rhode  Island,  1908,  one  office — Providence. 

South  Dakota,  1913,  one  office — Pierre. 

West  Virginia,  1901,  one  office — Wheeling. 

Wisconsin,  1901,  four  offices — La  Crosse,  Milwaukee,  Osh- 
kosh,  Superior. 

During  the  last  two  years  Colorado  has  increased  from  three 
offices  to  four,  Illinois  from  six  offices  to  eight,  Indiana  from 
one  office  to  five,  and  Massachusetts  from  three  offices  to  four. 

The  employment  exchanges  maintained  by  municipalities  are 
located  in  Phoenix  (Arizona),  Los  Angeles  and  Sacramento 
(California),  Kansas  City  (Missouri),  Butte,  Great  Falls,  and 
Missoula  (Montana),  Newark  (New  Jersey),  New  York  (New 
York),  Cleveland  (Ohio),  Portland  (Oregon),  and  Everett, 
Seattle,  Spokane  and  Tacoma  (Washington). 


AFFIRMATIVE  DISCUSSION 

New  Republic,    i :  supi-8.    December  26,  1914 

A  National  System  of  Labor  Exchanges.    John  B.  Andrews 

"The  first  step  toward  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  Unem- 
ployment is  the  organization  of  a  connected  network  of  public 
employment  exchanges." 

This  was  the  most  emphatic  point  in  the  resolutions  adopted 
by  the  First  National  Conference  on  Unemployment  when  it 
summed  up  the  results  of  its  two  days'  deliberations  in  New 
York  last  February.  The  conference,  held  under  the  joint 
auspices  of  the  American  Association  for  Labor  Legislation  and 
the  American  section  of  the  International  Association  on  Unem- 
ployment, was  composed  of  delegates  from  twenty-five  states 
and  fifty-nine  cities.  Among  those  who  took  part  were  repre- 
sentative trade-unionists,  employers,  economists  and  govern- 
ment officials.  Their  reports  on  the  state  of  employment  in 
their  respective  localities  formed  a  solid  foundation  for  the 
discussion  of  constructive  remedies.  The  conference  not  only 
made  suggestions  for  further  investigation  and  recommenda- 
tions for  expansion  and  improvement  of  state  and  municipal 
labor  exchanges,  but  voted  unanimously  to  urge  that  in  the 
federal  Department  of  Labor  there  be  established  a  bureau 
"with  power  to  establish  employment  exchanges  throughout  the 
country,  to  supplement  the  work  of  state  and  municipal  bureaus, 
to  act  as  a  clearing  house  of  information  and  promote  the 
distribution  of  labor  throughout  the  country." 

Shortly  after  the  conference  in  February  the  New  York 
Board  of  Aldermen  adopted  an  ordinance  providing  for  a 
municipal  employment  bureau  in  the  chief  city  of  the  country, 
The  office,  opened  for  business  on  November  19,  1914,  is  the 
best  equipped  in  America.  Mr.  Walter  L.  Sears,  for  eight  years 
head  of  the  Massachusetts  system,  is  its  efficient  superintendent. 
The  state  legislature  in  New  York,  also,  at  its  session  closing 
at  the  end  of  March  passed  a  bill  which  provides  for  a  state 
system  of  free  employment  bureaus.  Other  cities  and  states 


82  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

have  for  many  years  been  developing  similar  agencies,  and  the 
question  now  before  the  country  is  that  of  forging  into  the 
chain  the  necessary  third  link,  a  federal  system  of  public  labor 
bureaus  to  cooperate  with  the  state  and  municipal  exchanges. 

It  is  apparent  to  any  one  who  knows  anything  about  the 
subject  that  our  labor  market  is  unorganized  and  that  there  is  a 
tremendous  waste  of  time  and  energy  in  the  irregular  and 
haphazard  employment  of  workers.  It  is  this  very  great  social 
waste  which  we  are  just  beginning  to  appreciate,  but  every 
method  for  overcoming  it  so  far  tried  in  America  has  been 
painfully  inadequate. 

The  first  and  simplest  method  of  bringing  workmen  and  work 
together  is  by  unsystematic  individual  search.  A  man  not 
recommended  for  a  position  by  a  relative  or  friend  often 
follows  the  easiest  course,  that  which  involves  the  least  immedi- 
ate expenditure  of  money  and  thought.  He  starts  from  home 
and  drops  in  at  every  sign  of  "Help  Wanted." 

"Help  Wanted,"  scrawled  on  a  piece  of  cardboard,  is  the 
symbol  of  inefficiency  in  the  organization  of  the  labor  market. 
The  haphazard  practice  of  tramping  the  streets  in  search  of  it 
is  no  method  at  all.  It  assures  success  neither  to  the  idle 
worker  in  his  search,  for  work,  nor  to  the  employer  in  his 
search  for  labor.  On  the  contrary,  by  its  very  lack  of  system, 
it  needlessly  swells  the  tide  of  Unemployment,  and  through  the 
footweary,  discouraging  tramping  which  it  necessitates  often 
leads  to  vagrancy  and  to  crime. 

It  is  impossible  to  reckon  the  cost  to  the  community  of  this 
methodless  method.  Beyond  the  tremendous  waste  of  time, 
there  is  the  waste  incurred  by  putting  men  into  the  wrong  jobs. 
The  law  of  chance  decrees  that,  under  such  lack  of  care,  misfits 
must  be  the  rule;  and  society  now  permits  the  daily  process  of 
attempting  to  fit  a  round  peg  into  a  square  hole. 

A  second  common  method  of  connecting  employer  and 
employee  is  through  the  medium  of  advertising.  About  2,000 
newspapers  published  in  New  York  state  carry  every  year  some 
800,000  columns  of  "Help  Wanted"  and  "Situation  Wanted" 
advertising,  at  a  cost  to  employers  and  employees  estimated  at 
$20,000,000— an  expenditure  of  about  $5  for  every  worker  in  the 
state.  If  the  money  spent  brought  commensurate  results,  there 
would  be  less  ground  for  complaint.  But  at  present  an  employer 
advertises  for  help  in  several  papers,  because  all  the  workers 


UNEMPLOYMENT  83 

do  not  read  the  same  paper.  The  employee  lists  the  positions 
advertised,  and  then  starts  on  the  day's  tramp.  At  one  gate 
fifty  or  a  hundred  men  may  be  waiting  for  a  single  job,  while 
in  other  places  a  hundred  employers  may  be  waiting,  each  for 
a  single  employee.  Unnecessary  duplication  of  work  and  expense 
by  both  parties  is  apparent.  In  addition  to  the  expense,  news- 
paper advertising  also  possesses  inherent  possibilities  of  fraud — 
210  formal  complaints  of  this  particular  sort  have  been  investi- 
gated by  the  New  York  'City  commissioner  of  licenses  in  one 
year.  It  is  difficult  for  the  newspaper,  even  if  it  always  tries, 
to  detect  misrepresentations,  and  misrepresentation  breeds  dis- 
trust. The  victimized  employee  very  rarely  seeks  legal  redress. 
Either  he  is  ignorant  of  his  rights,  or  the  game  is  not  worth 
the  candle  to  a  man  who  owns  but  one  property,  labor,  upon 
the  continuous  sale  of  which  he  is  dependent  for  existence. 

Philanthropic  employment  bureaus  fail  mainly  because  of  the 
taint  of  charity  which  justly  or  unjustly  clings  to  them,  and 
have  become  for  the  most  part  merely  bureaus  for  placing  the 
handicapped.  Self-reliant  workmen  are  inclined  to  shun  such 
agencies,  and  employers  do  not  generally  apply  there  for  efficient 
labor.  Charging  small  fees  or  none  at  all,  these  offices  are  unable 
to  compete  with  the  more  active  private  agencies  which  spend 
large  sums  of  money  developing  clienteles  among  employers 
and  employees.  Trade  union  "day  rooms"  and  offices  main- 
tained by  employers'  associations  have  to  contend  with  mutual 
distrust,  while  their  benefits  are  at  best  limited  to  one  trade 
or  industry. 

Private  employment  agents,  doing  business  for  profit,  have 
sprung  up  in  all  large  centers,  no  fewer  than  800  of  them 
being  licensed  in  New  York  City  alone.  While  many  of  these 
operate  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  efficiency,  their  general 
character  is  picturesquely  if  not  elegantly  indicated  by  their 
soubriquet,  "employment  shark."  In  the  year  ending  May  I, 
1913,  the  commissioner  of  licenses  of  the  city  of  New  York 
reported  the  investigation  of  1,932  complaints  against  registered 
employment  agents,  resulting  in  nine  convictions,  the  refunding 
of  more  than  $3,000  to  victimized  applicants,  and  the  revocation 
of  thirteen  licenses.  Among  the  worst  evils  laid  at  the  door 
of  the  private  agencies  are  charging  extortionate  fees,  "splitting 
fees"  with  employers  who  after  a  few  days  discharge  a  work- 
man to  make  way  for  a  new  applicant  with  a  new  fee,  collusion 


84  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

with  immoral  resorts,  sending  applicants  to  places  where  there 
is  no  work,  and  general  misrepresentation  of  conditions. 

Only  recently  the  writer  heard  from  a  northern  New  Eng- 
land labor  official  a  harrowing  story  of  the  lumber  camps,  where 
workers  had  been  sent  from  private  agencies  in  New  York  and 
were  fined  and  imposed  upon  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  Eight 
men,  including  a  printer,  a  painter  and  a  clerk,  were  sent  by 
another  New  York  private  employment  agent  to  what  was 
described  in  their  contracts  as  "construction  work,  machinist  and 
contract  work."  The  men  found  themselves  in  a  Pittsburgh 
steel  mill,  before  the  furnaces.  Physically  unable  to  do  the 
work  required  of  them,  they  had  to  apply  to  the  office  of  asso- 
ciated charities  for  assistance  in  finding  work  at  their  trades. 
Although  an  investigation  was  made,  New  York  state  was 
unable  to  take  any  action,  as  none  of  the  complainants  was 
within  its  jurisdiction.  Such  examples  could  be  multiplied 
almost  indefinitely. 

Public  employment  bureaus,  designed  partly  as  an  offset  to 
the  abuses  of  the  private  agencies,  date  in  America  from  1890, 
when  Ohio  authorized  the  first  state  system.  Today  there  are 
between  seventy  and  eighty  such  bureaus,  maintained  by  nineteen 
states  and  by  a  dozen  or  more  municipalities.  These  offices 
(with  one  backward  exception)  charge  no  fees,  maintain  a 
neutral  attitude  in  time  of  labor  disturbances,  and  fill  positions, 
according  to  the  official  reports,  at  a  cost  ranging  from  4  cents 
to  $2  apiece.  In  Wisconsin,  where  there  are  four  state  ex- 
changes well  organized  on  the  most  approved  lines,  the  cost 
in  1911  was  about  35  cents  per  position  filled.  In  Illinois,  during 
the  twelve  years  1900-1911,  there  were  589,084  applications  for 
employment,  599,510  applications  for  workers,  and  512,424  posi- 
tions filled.  Illinois  now  appropriates  over  $50,000  a  year  for 
direct  support  of  its  state  labor  exchanges,  of  which  eight  have 
already  been  established. 

Notwithstanding  the  work  of  a  few,  these  public  bureaus 
are  still  far  from  furnishing  an  adequate  medium  for  the 
exchange  of  information  on  opportunities  for  employment. 
Fewer  than  half  the  states  are  represented.  Many  of  the  man- 
agers are  political  place-holders  of  worse  than  mediocre  attain- 
ments. Some  of  the  offices  exist  only  on  paper.  A  uniform 
method  of  record-keeping  has  yet  to  be  adopted.  Statistics  are 
non-comparable,  and  frequently  unreliable  if  not  wholly  value- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  85 

less.  There  is  practically  no  interchange  of  information  be- 
tween various  offices  in  a  state  or  between  states.  In  short, 
workmen  are  still  undergoing  want,  hardship  and  discourage- 
ment even  though  often  within  easy  reach  of  the  work  which 
would  support  them,  if  they  knew  where  to  find  it. 

Nor  does  the  evil  end  there.  Every  one  who  has  studied 
the  problem  realizes  that  method  and  system  in  putting  men 
and  opportunities  for  work  in  touch  with  each  other  will  not 
of  themselves  prevent  over-supply  of  labor  or  of  jobs.  They 
will  do  so  no  more  than  the  cotton  exchange  guards  against 
an  over-  or  an  under-supply  of  cotton.  They  will  serve  merely 
as  levelers  in  the  scales  of  labor  supply  and  labor  demand. 
Besides  the  Unemployment  which  is  due  to  the  failure  of  men 
and  jobs  to  find  each  other,  there  is  much  due  to  other  causes 
which  even  the  best  system  of  employment  exchanges  would  not 
directly  eliminate. 

But  every  one  realizes  that  these  other  causes  of  Unemploy- 
ment cannot  be  successfully  attacked  without  a  basis  in  com- 
prehensive, conscientiously  collected  information  such  as  cannot 
be  furnished  by  our  present  machinery  for  dealing  with  the 
problem.  Under  present  methods  there  exists  no  automatic, 
cumulative  means  for  collecting  the  facts.  That  results,  of 
course,  in  exaggerated  statements  in  both  directions.  Our  paucity 
of  information  on  this  complex  and  vital  question  has  continued, 
even  though  labor  problems  in  one  form  or  another  have  taken 
the  lead  as  subjects  for  legislation.  Any  scientific  law-making 
on  the  programs  of  social  insurance — especially  Unemployment 
insurance — and  of  vocational  guidance  must  be  grounded  on 
facts  of  relative  employment  and  Unemployment  of  the  workers 
tabulated  by  trades,  by  sexes  and  by  ages.  Without  a  nation- 
wide system  of  labor  exchanges,  no  basis  can  exist  for  anticipat- 
ing in  an  accurate  manner  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  the  demand  for 
labor.  Without  concentration  of  the  information  now  collected 
and  now  held  separately  in  thousands  of  separate  organizations 
throughout  the  land,  the  possibility  of  looking  into  the  future, 
or  of  profiting  by  the  past,  is  out  of  the  question. 

It  was  a  growing  realization  of  the  foregoing  facts  which 
inevitably  led  to  the  demand  for  a  federal  system  of  public 
employment  bureaus.  Such  a  system  would  cover  the  whole 
country.  Without  superseding  either  the  state  or  the  municipal 
exchanges  already  in  existence,  it  would  supplement  and  assist 


86  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

the  work  of  both,  dovetailing  them  with  its  own  organization 
into  an  efficient  whole.  Country-wide  cooperation  and  exchange 
of  information  would  then  be  an  accomplished  fact  instead  of 
merely  a  hope.  Statistics  for  the  study  of  Unemployment  and 
for  the  progressive  development  of  new  tactics  in  the  campaign 
against  it  would  be  coextensive  with  the  national  boundaries  and 
comparable  between  different  parts  of  the  nation.  The  regula- 
tion of  private  agencies  would  be  a  natural  function  of  the  fed- 
eral bureaus,  and  the  troublesome  "interstate  problem"  would  be 
solved  by  an  interstate  remedy.  Finally,  the  greater  resources 
at  the  disposal  of  the  federal  government  would  provide  better 
facilities  for  carrying  on  the  work  than  the  states  could  pro- 
vide, and  would  command  the  services  of  more  able  social  engi- 
neers than  are  found  in  most  of  the  state  exchanges  at  present. 

To  the  question  of  whether  such  a  system  is  feasible,  the 
answer  is  that  Great  Britain  already  has  one.  The  successful 
British  national  labor  exchanges,  established  by  the  act  of  Sep- 
tember 20,  1909,  already  form  the  most  thoroughly  organized  and 
most  widespread  system  of  their  kind  in  the  world.  Work  was 
begun  in  February,  1910,  with  eighty-two  agencies.  By  July, 
1913,  in  the  eight  administrative  districts  into  which  the  country 
was  divided  there  were  430  agencies,  staffed  by  full-time  officers, 
with  which  were  connected  1,066  local  agencies  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  Unemployment  insurance.  The  total  regular  staff  of 
these  1,496  offices  was  3,536  persons,  of  whom  about  600  were 
women. 

The  following  table  shows  the  number  of  applications  for 
employment,  the  number  of  vacancies  notified  by  employers,  and 
the  number  of  vacancies  filled,  for  specified  months  since  the 
system  has  been  in  operation : 

GROWTH  OF  OPERATIONS  OF  BRITISH  LABOR  EXCHANGES,  BY 
SPECIFIED  MONTHS 

Applications  Vacancies 

for  Notified  by  Vacancies 

Month                                                            Employment  Employers  Filled 

March,  1910 126,119           20,395 

March,  191 11 142,382           47»8n  37.7" 

March,   1912 178,317           72,650  55.650 

March,   1913 209,901           95,862  68,783 

March,   1914 222,204           99.089  74.578 

1  Five  weeks. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  87 

The  following  table  shows  the  usefulness  of  the  exchanges 
for  the  first  four  years  of  their  existence :  , 

GROWTH  OF  OPERATIONS  OF  BRITISH  LABOR  EXCHANGES,  BY  YEARS 

Applications  Vacancies 

for  Notified  by  Vacancies 

Year                                                                  Employment  Employers  Filled 

igio1    :     1,590,017         458,943  374.3I3 

1911    2,010,113         886,242  719,043 

1912 2,423,213  1,286,205  1,051,861 

1913   2,739,480  1,158,391  874,575 

1  Eleven  months. 

The  percentage  in  1912  of  vacancies  filled  to  vacancies  notified 
was  77  per  cent  (men,  81.1 ;  women,  73.2;  boys,  67.4;  girls,  73.4). 

In  Germany  there  are  323  public  bureaus,  all  maintained  by 
municipalities,  it  is  true,  but  bound  together  in  a  national  system 
which  harmoniously  operates  throughout  the  empire.  In  France 
and  in  Switzerland  also,  not  to  mention  other  less  important 
countries,  government  subsidies  are  offered  to  local  exchanges 
which  conform  to  certain  national  laws.  The  suggestion  of  a 
national  system  of  public  employment  offices  for  this,  perhaps 
the  most  highly  developed  industrial  nation  of  the  world,  comes 
therefore  not  as  an  untried  notion,  but  as  a  workable,  proved 
possibility.  The  only  question  is  one  of  method. 

To  combine  into  an  efficient  organization  the  results  of  the 
ripest  experience,  a  national  bureau  of  employment  should  com- 
prise three  main  divisions:  (i)  the  central  office  at  Washing- 
ton; (2)  a  number  of  district  clearing  houses;  and  (3)  the  local 
labor  exchanges. 

Let  us  briefly  sketch  the  special  functions  of  each. 

The  central  office,  from  its  vantage  point  in  the  national 
capital,  and  as  an  integral  part  of  the  federal  Department  of 
Labor,  would  have  the  task  of  organizing  the  entire  system, 
coordinating  its  various  elements,  and  supervising  its  operation. 
The  first  activity  in  connection  with  such  a  national  bureau  is 
the  establishment  and  conducting  of  public  labor  exchanges. 
These  should  be  built  up,  with  careful  regard  to  existing  state 
and  municipal  bureaus,  as  rapidly  and  in  as  many  parts  of  the 
country  as  circumstances  require  and  as  finances  permit.  The 
number  and  location  of  exchanges  need  not  be  constant,  but  can 
be  varied  in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  the  labor  market,  inac- 
tive offices  being  closed  and  new  ones  being  established  in  prom- 


88  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

ising  localities.  Nor  should  the  bureau  be  limited  to  establish- 
ing its  own  agencies.  Very  frequently  exchanges  are  initiated 
by  states  or  municipalities,  which  occupy  strategic  points  but 
which  through  shortage  of  funds  or  perhaps  through  improper 
management  do  not  make  a  "go";  these  the  federal  bureau 
should  be  able  to  take  over  at  its  discretion,  by  mutual  agree- 
ment. Whether  private  agencies  should  also  in  some  cases  be 
taken  over  is  less  certain,  but  there  are  arguments  in  favor  of 
that.  Still  another  possibility  is  that  of  joint  action  by  the 
federal  bureau  and  an  interested  state,  county,  or  city,  to  main- 
tain in  cooperation  an  employment  bureau  where  needed,  each 
furnishing  part  of  the  funds.  Such  an  arrangement  has  for 
several  years  existed  between  the  state  of  Wisconsin  and  the 
city  of  Milwaukee  with  results  eminently  satisfactory  on  both 
sides.  State  agricultural  or  immigration  departments  might  also 
be  eager  to  enter  into  an  agreement  of  this  nature. 

A  second  large  duty  of  the  federal  bureau  would  be  that  of 
cooperating  with,  encouraging,  assisting,  and  to  some  extent 
regulating  all  the  public  employment  offices  conducted  by  other 
subdivisions  throughout  the  country — state,  county,  town  or  vil- 
lage. The  lack  of  cooperation,  the  failure  to  interchange  infor- 
mation of  vital  importance  to  workmen  and  employers,  is  one 
of  the  sad  features  of  the  public  employment  bureau  situation 
at  the  present  time.  Here  is  a  great  field  for  the  standardizing 
activities  of  a  federal  bureau.  The  scattered  public  agencies 
must  be  brought  into  full  cooperation  with  the  federal  system 
and  with  one  another.  Information  of  industrial  opportunities 
must  no  longer  be  locked  within  the  four  walls  of  each  office, 
but  must  flow  freely  to  other  offices  and  to  other  states.  In  the 
hands  of  the  proposed  federal  bureau  more  than  in  any  other 
agency  lies  the  opportunity  of  bringing  order  out  of  the  present 
chaos.  It  could  devise,  in  cooperation  with  public  employment 
officials,  a  standard  record  system,  encourage  its  adoption  by 
the  various  agencies,  and  assist  them  in  installing  it.  It  could 
encourage  the  adoption  of  a  uniform  method  of  doing  business 
and  of  appraising  results.  There  is  even  a  suggestion  that  the 
federal  government  offer  a  money  subvention  to  state  and  city 
exchanges  which  conform  to  the  federal  rules,  as  in  France  and 
Switzerland.  If  this  step  is  inadvisable,  the  same  result  might 
be  attained  by  penalizing  nonconforming  exchanges  by  refusing 
to  cooperate  with  them. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  89 

A  third  duty  of  a  federal  employment  bureau  would  be  the 
division  of  the  country  into  districts  and  the  inauguration 
therein  of  district  clearing  houses.  The  United  Kingdom,  with 
an  area  only  one  twenty-fifth  as  vast  as  ours,  has  been  divided 
for  the  purposes  of  administering  its  employment  bureau  system 
into  eight  districts — six  for  England  and  Scotland,  one  for 
Wales,  and  one  for  Ireland.  The  duties  of  clearing  houses  in 
the  American  system  will  be  discussed  later. 

Fourth  among  the  duties  of  the  central  office  would  be  to 
carry  on  a  campaign  of  the  fullest  possible  publicity  on  the 
condition  and  fluctuations  of  the  country's  labor  market.  For 
this  campaign  it  would  draw  upon  the  information  contained  in 
the  short-interval  reports  of  the  local  exchanges  and  of  the 
clearing  houses,  and  it  should  also  be  empowered  to  engage,  in 
localities  where  neither  of  these  exist,  special  correspondents. 
The  information  of  labor  supply  and  demand  thus  secured  could 
then  be  compiled  and  published  in  a  number  of  attractive  ways 
which  opportunity  and  ingenuity  will  suggest. 

Periodical  bulletins  should  present  "the  information  gathered 
through  the  labor  exchanges  about  the  state  of  the  labor  market 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,"  and  should  combine  therewith 
other  facts  essential  to  the  workman  who  is  considering  a  posi- 
tion. Chief  among  these  facts  may  be  mentioned  wage  rates 
and  cost  of  living  in  the  different  districts,  expansion  or  decay 
of  trades  or  industries,  important  strikes  and  lockouts,  business 
booms  or  depressions,  and  any  other  occurrences  tending  toward 
either  abnormal  under-supply  or  over-supply  of  labor.  The 
bulletin  and  other  information  should  be  printed  in  such 
languages  as  will  most  enhance  their  usefulness. 

The  fifth  and  last  important  function  of  a  federal  employ- 
ment bureau  is  the  troublesome  one  of  regulating  private  employ- 
ment agencies.  The  American  Association  of  Public  Employ- 
ment Offices,  at  its  second  annual  convention  in  September,  1914, 
went  on  record  as  recommending  the  abolition  of  all  such  offices 
operating  for  profit.  An  initiated  measure  which  would  accom- 
plish practically  the  same  result  was  carried  at  the  November 
election  in  the  state  of  Washington.  Whether  we  are  yet  pre- 
pared to  go  as  far  as  that,  considering  the  inadequacy  of  our 
present  public  employment  bureaus,  is  disputed  by  many  students 
of  the  problem;  but  in  no  quarter  is  there  lack  of  recognition 
of  the  need  for  stringent  regulation.  Agencies  which  confine 


90  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

their  operations  to  jobs  and  men  within  the  state  are  under 
state  jurisdiction.  But  these  are  only  a  small  part  of  the  total 
number.  Most  private  bureaus  engage  also  in  "the  business  of 
securing  work  to  be  performed  outside  the  state  where  the 
business  is  carried  on  and  which  involves  the  transportation  of 
the  workman  from  one  state  to  another."  Engaging  in  such 
interstate  business  brings  an  agency  properly  under  federal 
control. 

The  district  clearing  houses  already  mentioned  are  quite 
distinct  from  the  local  labor  exchanges,  and  must  not  be  con- 
fused with  them.  The  clearing  house  finds  no  positions.  Its 
functions  are  to  exchange  information  between  the  local 
exchanges,  and  between  other  correspondents  in  its  district,  to 
receive  daily  reports  from  all  public  exchanges  within  its 
jurisdiction  and  reports  from  private  agencies  at  least  weekly, 
and  to  compile  and  publish  these  data  for  its  district.  It  also 
carries  on  an  interchange  of  information  with  the  clearing 
houses  in  other  districts.  It  is  the  channel  through  which  all 
the  offices  in  its  district  would  keep  in  constant  touch  with  the 
national  headquarters,  and  also  through  which  information  from 
Washington  would  reach  the  district. 

The  functions  of  the  ultimate  units  in  this  system,  the  local 
labor  exchanges,  may  all  be  summed  up  in  the  words  "bringing 
together  workmen  of  all  kinds  seeking  employment  and  employ- 
ers seeking  workmen."  The  good  superintendent  of  a  public 
employment  office  will  not  wait  behind  his  counter  for  employers 
and  employees  to  hunt  him  up  and  to  use  his  office  as  a  medium 
for  coming  together ;  he  will  take  active  steps  in  the  process.  By 
judicious  telephoning,  issuing  circulars,  newspaper  advertising, 
newspaper  publicity  and  in  other  ways  he  will  constantly  bring 
his  office  to  the  attention  of  those  who  should  use  it.  He  will 
build  up  a  clientele  among  both  parties  to  the  labor  contract.  In 
the  projected  system  he  should  report  daily  on  a  uniform  blank 
to  the  clearing  house  of  his  district,  which  in  due  season  would 
submit  the  report  to  the  national  headquarters. 

Thus  the  jurisdiction  of  the  projected  federal  bureau  would 
extend  throughout  the  country  over  every  organized  interstate 
agency  for  the  securing  of  employment  or  of  workers.  Not  only 
its  own  and  other  public  offices  would  be  amenable  to  its  regu- 
lation, but  also  private  money-making  enterprises  and  philan- 
thropic bureaus,  in  so  far  as  their  activities  transcended  state 


UNEMPLOYMENT  91 

borders.  In  addition  to  its  regulative  activities,  it  would  operate 
exchanges  on  its  own  account,  build  up  a  clearing  house  system 
for  employment  information,  and  publish  and  distribute  that 
information  as  widely  as  it  could.  In  short,  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  Frank  P.  Walsh,  an  advocate  of  the  system,  it  would  "do 
everything  possible  to  aid  in  securing  the  fullest  application  of 
the  labor  force  of  the  country." 

In  the  foregoing  hasty  summary  of  the  functions  of  the 
various  essential  parts  of  a  national  system  of  employment 
bureaus,  much  administrative  detail  has  naturally  been  omitted. 

In  selecting  the  director  of  so  powerful  and  important  a 
bureau  great  care  would  have  to  be  exercised  to  secure  a  man 
of  impartiality,  character  and  ability.  The  New  York  stale 
employment  bureau  law  requires  that  the  director  must  have 
"recognized  executive  and  managerial  ability,  technical  and  sci- 
entific knowledge  upon  the  subject  of  Unemployment  and  admin- 
istration of  public  employment  offices,  and  recognized  capacity 
to  direct  investigations  of  Unemployment  and  public  and  private 
agencies  for  remedying  the  same."  Under  this  provision  there 
was  selected  as  director  of  the  state  bureau  one  of  the  best 
equipped  men  in  the  country,  Mr.  Charles  B.  Barnes.  Some 
such  group  of  qualifications  should  be  embodied  in  a  law  estab- 
lishing a  federal  system. 

The  director,  superintendents  of  clearing  houses  and  of 
branch  offices,  and  all  other  employees  should  be  under  civil 
service.  They  should  be  able  to  feel  secure  in  their  positions 
as  long  as  their  work  is  faithful  and  up  to  the  mark.  The 
salaries,  however,  should  most  emphatically  not  be  rigidly  fixed 
by  law.  As  a  device  for  killing  incentive  and  interest,  and  for 
turning  out  a  body  of  chair-warmers,  a  salary  fixed  by  statute 
and  incapable  of  increase  for  merit  or  of  decrease  for  inefficiency 
has  no  equal.  The  rates  of  pay  for  subordinates  should — within 
limits,  of  course — be  in  the  hands  of  the  appointing  authority, 
who  can  then  reward  efficiency  or  penalize  its  opposite. 

Reports  of  the  local  exchanges  to  the  clearing  houses  must 
be  made  daily  if  the  information  is  to  be  fresh  enough  to  serve 
any  useful  purpose.  The  farmers  of  the  country  would  little 
thank  the  weather  man  for  a  neatly  lithographed  forecast  of 
last  week's  weather ;  and  a  detailed  arithmetical  report  on  how 
many  jobs  or  workers  might  have  been  had  at  some  previous 


92  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

date  will  be  just  as  little  helpful  to  industrial  managers  or  to 
employees. 

The  administrative  difficulties  which  would  beset  the  opera- 
tion of  a  system  like  that  here  projected  would  be  many.  Among 
the  most  serious  would  be  that  of  maintaining  a  strict  balance 
of  impartiality  between  employers  and  employees.  The  estab- 
lishment of  state  employment  offices  has  on  the  whole  been 
favored  by  workmen,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  do  away 
with  the  abuses  perpetrated  by  the  private  agencies,  and  has  been 
opposed  by  employers  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be  unduly 
coddling  labor.  In  the  matter  of  a  national  system  for  the 
United  States,  however,  the  main  opposition  has  come  from  the 
side  of  organized  labor,  which  has  apparently  feared  control  of 
the  system  by  the  employing  class.  "Beware  of  the  Greeks  when 
they  come  bringing  gifts,"  warned  President  John  H.  Walker 
of  the  Illinois  State  Federation  of  Labor,  when  the  project  was 
broached  at  the  New  York  conference  on  Unemployment.  And 
he  continued:  "You  know  we  have  been  double-crossed  and 
deluded  so  often  that  when  anything  is  held  out  to  us  the  first 
thing  we  look  for  is  to  see  where  we  are  going  to  get  the  worst 
of  it;  and  one  of  the  first  things  that  came  to  my  mind  was 
that  it  was  possible  that  these  well-intentioned  people,  taking  an 
interest  in  this  question  of  Unemployment,  might  organize  the 
labor  exchange  bureaus  in  such  a  way  that  the  entire  unemployed 
army  would  be  mobilized  and  that  the  employers  would  have 
such  access  to  it  as  to  be  enabled  to  use  it  at  any  point,  at  all 
times,  to  break  down  the  things  that  the  organized  workers  of 
the  country  have  already  established  by  fighting  for  them  hard 
and  long."  Mainly  through  Mr.  Walker's  efforts,  the  resolutions 
adopted  in  favor  of  a  federal  system  contained  the  proviso  that 
"such  distribution  shall  not  cause  the  deterioration  of  the  pres- 
ent standards  of  wages,  conditions  and  hours  of  employment 
of  American  workers,  or  impair  their  efforts  to  improve  them." 

In  order  to  prevent  distrust  of  this  sort,  which  would  cause 
friction  and  impede  the  work  of  the  bureau,  there  should  be  for 
the  central  office  and  for  each  of  the  local  exchanges  a  "rep- 
resentative committee."  A  representative  committee  should  con- 
sist of  equal  numbers  of  employers  and  employees,  elected  by  the 
respective  groups,  and  should  have  a  disinterested  chairman 
selected  by  the  other  representatives  jointly.  The  committees 
would  assist  the  director  and  the  superintendents  in  determin- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  93 

ing  policies  and  in  selecting  employees  for  the  offices,  insure 
impartiality  in  labor  disputes,  prevent  the  bureau's  being  used 
to  depress  or  unduly  elevate  wages,  and  aid  in  all  other  mat- 
ters relating  to  the  management  of  the  bureau.  The  impor- 
tance of  such  committees  in  gaining  public  confidence  for  the 
bureau  cannot  be  over-estimated.  It  was  recognized  by  the 
British  labor  exchanges  act  of  1909,  and  by  a  French  decree  of 
1911  establishing  the  conditions  under  which  the  more  than 
150  municipal  labor  exchanges  of  that  country  might  share 
in  the  government  subvention.  Without  express  legislative  stip- 
ulation, representative  committees  have  under  the  Wisconsin 
Industrial  Commission  become  an  indispensable  adjunct  to  the 
public  exchanges  in  that  state,  and  the  New  York  state  law 
of  1914  made  them  mandatory.  By  an  error  of  judgment  the 
British  act  provides  that  the  committees  must  be  appointed  by 
the  administrative  head  of  the  system  instead  of  being  elected 
by  the  jointly  interested  groups  themselves,  and  this  error 
has  been  followed  in  the  New  York  law.  If  the  purpose  of 
the  committee  is  to  inspire  public  confidence  in  the  unbiassed 
conduct  of  the  office,  it  is  evident  that  the  representatives  of 
both  parties  to  the  labor  contract  should  be  representatives  in- 
deed, elected  by  their  constituencies,  not  "appointed  from  above." 
Perhaps  the  most  controversial  point  in  the  administration 
of  the  bureau  is  the  policy  to  be  pursued  in  times  of  actual 
labor  strife,  in  the  days  of  strike  or  lockout.  The  first  Illinois 
law  establishing  state  exchanges  in  1899  was  four  years  later 
declared  unconstitutional  because  of  the  provision  that  appli- 
cations for  help  to  fill  places  vacant  because  of  a  strike  were 
not  to  be  received.  Wisconsin  had  a  similar  experience.  The 
healthy  instinct  of  which  this  prohibitory  clause  was  an  un- 
skillful manisfestation  has  been  satisfied  in  most  American 
exchanges  by  publicity.  The  prospective  employee  is  informed 
of  the  existence  of  the  dispute  at  the  same  time  that  he  is  in- 
formed of  the  position,  and  it  is  left  to  him  to  decide  whether 
or  not  to  take  the  work.  In  Massachusetts  it  is  even  the  prac- 
tice in  case  of  an  industrial  dispute  to  stamp  the  introduction 
card  which  the  employee  is  to  present  to  the  employer  with 
the  words  "There  is  a  strike  on  at  this  establishment."  Under 
the  publicity  policy  very  few  applicants  take  strike-breaking 
jobs.  Employers  and  labor  union  representatives  are  thor- 
oughly satisfied,  and  consequently  the  exchange  escapes  the 


94  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

rocks  of  disaster  on  either  side.  In  the  words  of  a  resolution 
adopted  by  the  First  National  Conference  on  Unemployment, 
these  agencies  must  be  held  true  to  their  character  as  belong- 
ing to  the  public  and  remain  neutral  in  all  trade  disputes. 

As  an  important  corollary  to  this,  there  must  be  the  further 
provision  that  no  applicant  is  to  suffer  any  disqualification  or 
prejudice  at  an  exchange  if  he  refuses  to  accept  an  offered 
job  on  the  ground  that  a  strike  or  lockout  exists  or  because 
the  wages  offered  are  lower  than  those  current  in  the  district 
for  the  same  work. 

Frequently  the  very  man  needed  to  fill  a  distant  position  is 
without  the  railroad  fare  necessary  to  reach  it.  This  problem 
has  been  met  in  some  European  countries  by  advances  of  trans- 
portation in  certain  cases.  In  America  only  an  inconsiderable 
number  of  the  public  exchanges  make  any  such  provision,  al- 
though several  of  them  act  as  intermediaries  in  turning  over 
to  applicants,  under  some  system  of  control,  the  transportation 
advanced  by  prospective  employers.  Administrative  officials  of 
a  federal  system  will  no  doubt  find  it  necessary  to  work  out 
an  adequate  policy  of  handling  such  cases. 

An  important  and  delicate  part  of  the  work  of  an  employ- 
ment bureau  system  is  the  placing  of  juvenile  workers  in  posi- 
tions which  are  suited  to  their  capacities  and  which  will  offer 
opportunities  of  development  and  advancement.  Unfortunately, 
among  American  labor  exchanges  'the  possibilities  and  the  duty 
of  this  sort  of  activity  are  all  but  unknown.  One  state,  Massa- 
chusetts, reports  making  consistent  effort  in  this  direction,  and 
the  1914  New  York  law  devotes  considerable  attention  to  the 
matter,  but  elsewhere  little  or  nothing  is  done.  This  failure 
to  respond  to  the  opportunity  to  do  constructive  work  is  in 
painful  contrast  to  the  English  system  of  close  cooperation  be- 
tween labor  exchange  and  school.  In  Edinburgh,  under  a  spe- 
cial act  for  Scotland,  a  division  of  work  has  been  arrived  at  be- 
tween exchange  and  school  by  which  the  latter  furnishes  the 
advice  and  the  former  furnishes  the  information  concerning 
situations;  an  officer  of  the  exchange  occupies  a  room  in  the 
school  building  to  facilitate  the  transfer  of  information. 

The  New  York  state  law  provides  that  applicants  between 
the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen  may  register  at  school  on  spe- 
cial forms,  which  when  transferred  to  the  employment  office 
are  to  be  treated  as  personal  registration.  The  superintend- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  95 

ent  of  the  office  and  the  school  principal  are  to  cooperate  in 
finding  suitable  employments  for  children,  and  all  this  side  of 
the  work  of  the  office  is  to  be  assisted  by  a  special  sub-com- 
mittee on  juvenile  employment,  consisting  of  employers,  em- 
ployees, and  persons  with  knowledge  of  education  or  of  other 
conditions  affecting  children.  I  believe  there  are  great  possi- 
bilities of  cooperation  between  the  school  system  which  trains 
the  child  for  work,  the  department  of  health  which  grants 
work-permits,  and  the  juvenile  department  of  the  labor  ex- 
change which  furnishes  knowledge  of  openings  for  fit  employ- 
ment. A  federal  measure  would  be  incomplete  without  some 
such  provisions. 

A  bill  looking  to  the  establishment  for  the  United  States 
of  a  system  as  here  outlined  was  introduced  in  Congress  on 
April  29,  1914,  by  Representative  Murdock  of  Kansas,  and  was 
at  once  referred  to  the  House  Committee  on  Labor.  The  bill 
provides  for  a  Bureau  of  Employment  within  the  federal  De- 
partment of  Labor,  under  the  direction  of  a  commissioner  of 
employment  to  be  appointed  by  the  President  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  Senate.  The  original  advocates  of  this  legislation 
favored  the  creation  of  representative  committees  in  connec- 
tion with  the  offices,  as  previously  urged  in  a  report  of  the 
City  Club  of  New  York  through  Mr.  Morris  L.  Ernst,  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Public  Employment  Exchanges. 

The  House  Committee  hearings  upon  the  measure  during 
June  and  July  evoked  widespread  interest.  Among  the  organi- 
zations whose  spokesmen  appeared  in  its  favor  were  such  rep- 
resentative bodies  as  the  North  American  Civic  League  for 
Immigrants,  the  American  Association  for  Labor  Legislation, 
the  American  Section  of  the  International  Association  on  Un- 
employment, the  Brooklyn  Bureau  of  Charities,  the  National 
Religious  Citizenship  League,  the  Conference  upon  Unemploy- 
ment among  Women,  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  the  National  Liberal  Immigration  League. 

Action  was  repeatedly  deferred,  however,  and  the  bill  allowed 
to  languish  in  committee,  to  permit  the  federal  Industrial  Re- 
lations Commission,  which  publicly  announced  that  it  had  be- 
gun work  upon  the  problem,  to  bring  in  a  measure  of  its  own, 
which  it  was  felt  would  embody  the  results  of  wider  investi- 
gation and  more  expert  opinion.  Commission  hearings  on  the 
subject  of  Unemployment  were  held  in  New  York,  Chicago, 


96  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

Seattle,  and  in  other  cities.  Although  the  European  war  threat- 
ened a  repetition  of  the  wave  of  Unemployment  which  caught 
the  country  napping  in  the  winter  of  1913-1914,  the  expected 
measure  did  not  materialize.  When,  on  October  twenty-fourth, 
Congress  finally  adjourned,  both  it  and  the  commission  had 
still  failed  to  rise  to  the  obvious  emergency.  A  set  of  eight 
"Tentative  Proposals"  were  drafted  by  the  commission  and 
were  widely  circulated  for  advice  and  criticism,  but  as  late  as 
November  tenth  the  statement  was  made  that  "the  problem  of 
revising  this  plan  is  now  before  the  commission,  but  so  far 
no  action  has  been  taken  upon  a  revision." 

Obviously  this  delay  prevents  the  possibility  of  organizing 
a  national  employment  bureau  to  meet  the  pressing  need  of  the 
present  year.  But  both  Congress  and  its  investigating  com- 
mission should  be  spurred  to  some  action  without  further  costly 
delay. 

The  proposals  as  they  stand  are  in  most  essentials  practi- 
cally identical  with  those  of  the  Murdock  bill,  differing  prin- 
cipally in  greater  amplification  of  detail  which,  in  some  in- 
stances, might  better  be  left  to  the  administrative  officers,  and 
in  a  few  additions,  the  chief  of  which  is  the  idea  of  district 
clearing  houses  which  has  been  incorporated  in  the  foregoing 
outline. 

Important  as  an  efficient  nation-wide  network  of  public 
employment  exchanges  is  as  a  first  step  in  solving  the  baffling 
problem  of  Unemployment,  the  fact  must  not  for  a  moment  be 
forgotten  that  it  is  but  a  beginning  of  the  whole  solution.  For 
the  employable  there  must  be  in  addition  regularized  business 
and  adequate  Unemployment  insurance  such  as  Great  Britain 
has  already  been  farsighted  enough  to  establish.  To  fill  in  the 
gaps  caused  by  the  uncontrollable  fluctuations  of  private  in- 
dustry there  must  be  some  provision  for  public  work  of  per- 
manent value  to  the  community.  Finally,  for  the  unemploy- 
able, there  must  be  a  wider  development  of  the  relief  agency, 
the  hospital,  the  reformatory  and  the  industrial  farm  colony. 

But  here  and  now  the  incontestable  first  duty  of  Congress 
with  respect  to  the  unemployment  problem,  which  every  one 
now  sees  lowering  upon  the  country  with  the  approach  of 
bitter  weather,  is  to  enact  an  adequate  bill  for  national  labor 
exchanges. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  97 

Congressional  Record.    51 :  Appendix  413-16.    May  i,  1914 
For  a  Bureau  of  Employment.    Victor  Murdock 

MR.  MURDOCK.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  introduced  on  April  29  last 
a  bill  to  establish  in  the  Department  of  Labor,  a  bureau  to  be 
known  as  the  Bureau  of  Employment.  The  number  of  the  bill 
is  H.  R.  16130.  Its  purpose  is  to  lessen  the  amount  of  Unem- 
ployment in  the  United  States. 

Among  the  pressing  national  problems  of  the  democracy,  Mr. 
Speaker,  the  problems  of  labor  come  first.  The  estate  which 
it  has  reached,  the  high  estate  to  which  it  aspires,  its  plans  and 
purposes,  are  indissolubly  part  of  the  vitality  of  the  Republic, 
and  remain  and  must  remain  the  nation's  chief  concern.  For 
her,  as  nowhere  else  in  the  world,  has  labor  those  governmental 
processes  by  which  it  can  blaze  its  way  to  the  open  highway 
which  leads  to  the  attainment  of  social  justice. 

That  it  is  blazing  its  way,  all  but  the  willfully  blind  must  see. 
Inspired  by  the  new  doctrine  of  legal  equality  and,  at  the  same 
moment,  wrenched  from  ancient  viewpoints  by  the  violent 
revolution,  which  labor-dividing  machinery,  quickened  trans- 
portation, and  immediate  communication  wrought,  labor  has 
kept  on  its  mighty  march  of  progress.  No  blindness  in  courts, 
cushioned  in  easy  precedents,  no  reluctance  in  legislatures,  no 
antagonism  of  the  selfish  and  unseeing  elements  in  society  have 
dismayed  labor.  The  final  arbiter  of  institutions  is  the  preva- 
lent sense  of  right.  Ultimately  it  writes  constitutions,  drafts 
laws,  and  in  the  end  against  the  last  ditch  of  special  privilege — 
delay — must  interpret  them.  To  this  prevalent  sense  of  right, 
labor  directs  its  suit. 

No  better  index  of  the  progress  that  has  been  made  may  be 
found  anywhere  than  in  the  remarkable  series  of  propositions 
set  forth  concretely  in  the  national  platform  of  the  Progressive 
Party  of  1912,  dealing  with  the  rights  of  labor.  The  Pro- 
gressive Party  was  new,  sensitively  alive  to  the  problems  of 
the  hour,  impatient  with  cant  and  glittering  generality  and  the 
platform  platitudes  of  the  past.  It  drove  directly  to  its  pur- 
pose. It  declared: 

The  supreme  duty  of  the  nation  is  the  conservation  of  human 
resources  through  an  enlightened  measure  of  social  and  industrial  justice. 
We  pledge  ourselves  to  work  unceasingly  in  state  and  nation  for — 

Effective   legislation   looking  to   the  prevention   of  industrial   accidents, 


98  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

occupational    diseases,     overwork,    involuntary    unemployment,     and    other 
injurious  effects  incident  to  modern  industry; 

The  fixing  of  minimum  safety  and  health  standards  for  the  various 
occupations,  and  the  exercise  of  the  public  authority  of  state  and  nation, 
including  the  federal  control  over  interstate  commerce  and  the  taxing  power 
to  maintain  such  standards; 

The  prohibition  of  child  labor; 

Minimum  wage  standards  for  working  women,  to  provide  a  living  scale 
in  all  industrial  occupations; 

The  prohibition  of  night  work  for  women,  and  the  establishment  of  an 
8-hour  day  for  women  and  young  persons; 

One  day's  rest  in  seven  for  all  wageworkers; 

The  8-hour  day  in  continuous  24-hour  industries; 

The  abolition  of  the  convict  contract-labor  system;  substituting  a  system 
of  prison  production  for  governmental  consumption  only;  and  the  appli- 
cation of  prisoners'  earnings  to  the  support  of  their  dependent  families; 

Publicity  as  to  wages,  hours,  and  conditions  of  labor;  full  reports  upon 
industrial  accidents  and  diseases,  and  the  opening  to  public  inspection  of 
all  tallies,  weights,  measures,  and  check  systems  on  labor  products; 

Standards  of  compensation  for  death  by  industrial  accident  and  injury 
and  trade  diseases  which  will  transfer  the  burden  of  lost  earnings  from  the 
families  of  working  people  to  the  industry,  and  thus  to  the  community; 

The  protection  of  home  life  against  the  hazards  of  sickness,  irregular 
employment,  and  old  age  through  the  adoption  of  a  system  of  social  insur- 
ance adapted  to  American  use; 

The  development  of  the  creative  labor  power  of  America  by  lifting  the 
last  load  of  illiteracy  from  American  youth  and  establishing  continuation 
schools  for  industrial  education  under  public  control,  and  encouraging  agri- 
cultural education  and  demonstration  in  rural  schools; 

The  establishment  of  industrial  research  laboratories  to  put  the  methods 
and  discoveries  of  science  at  the  service  of  American  producers. 

We  favor  the  organization  of  the  workers,  men  and  women,  as  a  means 
of  protecting  their  interests  and  of  promoting  their  progress. 

The  bill  creating  the  Bureau  of  Employment  is  directed  to 
the  pledge  looking  to  tfie  prevention  of  involuntary  unemploy- 
ment. 

The  problem  is  essentially  a  national  one.  The  nation  has 
become  one  market  and  one  workshop.  This  is  the  answer 
to  the  question  why  cities  and  states  (and  many  have  attempted 
the  problem)  have  not  attained  the  success  in  solving  it  they  set 
out  upon.  The  effectual  unit  is  the  nation  and  nothing  less. 

There  is  involved  also  in  the  question  a  coordination  of  those 
decent  employment  agencies,  under  governmental  license,  and 
the  drastic  elimination  of  those  agencies  which  have  practiced 
the  most  cruel  deceptions  on  men  out  of  work  through  the  ab- 
sence of  national  legislation  on  the  subject. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  99 

The  problem  to  which  we  address  ourselves  is  emphatically 
not  the  problem  of  the  vagrant,  the  defective,  or  the  inefficient. 
The  man  "out  of  work"  does  not  argue  himself  inefficient,  and 
the  self-sufficient  idle  rich  in  this  country  who  so  contend  are 
cruelly,  if  not  consciously,  callous  to  the  facts.  The  problem  is 
an  industrial  one  dealing  with  the  men  who  want  work  and  the 
employer  who  wants  workmen.  I  am  not  concerned,  in  this  in- 
stance, with  the  loafers  in  society,  either  at  the  top  or  at  the 
bottom. 

I  want  to  bring  the  man  out  of  a  job  and  the  job  that  is 
waiting  for  the  man  together.  I  want  my  nation  to  know,  for 
the  good  of  the  whole  industrial  problem,  more  of  the  real  facts 
in  regard  to  casual  labor  and  seasonal  occupation. 

I  want  the  inhuman  frauds  and  deceptions  which  have  been 
practiced  upon  helpless  workingmen,  through  the  absence  of  such 
a  national  supervision  as  I  provide,  prohibited. 

Is  there  need  of  the  legislation  now?  Let  me  quote  from  an 
article  by  Frances  A.  Kellor,  of  the  Progressive  National  Serv- 
ice, a  notable  student  of  industrial  conditions,  who  made  a  sur- 
vey of  the  conditions  of  the  unemployed  in  New  York  City  last 
February.  She  writes : 

One  day  this  month,  in  studying  how  New  York  City  deals  with  its 
unemployed,  I  found  a  man  who  was  offered  an  outdoor  job  and  who 
couldn't  take  it  because  he  had  no  shoes  or  sufficient  other  clothing.  Philan- 
thropy provides  a  woodyard  where  he  could  have  earned  them. 

I  saw  250  men  huddled  in  four  dark  rooms  of  an  employment  agency 
where  they  had  to  stand  all  night  because  some  would  have  to  be  turned 
out  if  they  lay  down  or  sat  up. 

I  trudged  with  one  man  to  17  agencies  looking  for  a  job,  and  got  back 
to  residential  Fifth  Avenue  to  find  a  man  with  a  job  but  not  knowing 
where  to  get  a  good  man. 

I  saw  a  saloon  that  sets  out  every  night  in  the  barroom  a  counter  of 
sandwiches  and  a  tank  of  hash  and  witnessed  the  mad  rush  of  men  who 
had  been  without  food  for  days  other  than  the  pickings  from  ash  barrels. 
The  saloon  expects,  when  times  are  good,  that  the  men  will  repay  the  favor. 

I  saw  in  the  waiting  rooms  of  department  stores  crowds  of  girls,  some 
of  whom  lived  in  so-called  working  girls'  homes,  where  their  doors  were 
locked  during  the  day,  shutting  them  out  until  night.  This  was  the  rule 
adopted  when  they  were  employed  and  could  not  be  changed  when  they 
were  without  work.  I  saw,  on  the  other  hand,  many  unfilled  requests  for 
domestic  workers. 

I  saw  children  with  their  working  papers,  new  to  the  game  of  finding 
work,  thrown  out  on  their  own  resources  to  make  connection  where  and 
how  they  could.  I  read  of  the  demand  for  workers  from  localities  which 


ioo  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

men  could  not  possibly  reach  because  they  did  not  have  the  fare  to  get 
there. 

Now,  these  thousands  of  people  are  not  mendicants  nor  crooks,  but 
honest  working  men  and  women.  As  early  as  June,  and  in  the  fall  months, 
any  intelligent  government  by  consulting  the  employment  agencies — the 
only  barometer  the  country  has — could  have  seen  what  was  coming.  In 
December  the  ratio  of  jobs  requested,  and  those  offered,  was  5  to  i,  on  a 
basis  of  1,500  applications.  One  agency  reported  that  out  of  200  requests 
within  a  month  they  had  filled  one  place.  Another  said  they  had  had  a 
"good  day"  when  they  placed  4  men  out  of  60  men. 

Now,  what  is  the  matter  with  our  labor  situation  that  we  let  men  freeze 
and  starve  before  we  know  what  is  happening?  What  is  the  matter  with 
our  city  that,  with  its  abundant  resources,  those  who  have  jobs  and  supplies 
and  those  who  have  neither  miss  each  other  within  the  circumferences  of  a 
few  blocks?  What  is  the  matter  with  our  state  and  nation  that  a  laborer 
can  not  go  to  the  place  where  a  job  is  waiting?  And  what  becomes  of  our 
millions  given  to  charity  that  the  saloon  in  times  of  stress  becomes  the 
"neighborhood  center"? 

In  this  connection  I  desire  to  present  to  the  Congress  and  the 
country  at  this  time  an  exceedingly  able  paper  by  Elizabeth  Read, 
of  New  York,  incorporating  a  statement  of  the  reasons  for  the 
establishment  of  the  bureau  of  employment.  The  paper  sets  forth 
present  conditions  in  relation  to  Unemployment  which  show  that 
the  situation  is  general  and  acute ;  and  the  reasons  why  these 
conditions  cannot  be  remedied  by  municipal  or  state  action.  Her 
view  gains  emphasis  from  the  fact  that  the  writer  is  the  legal 
assistant  of  the  legislative  committee  of  the  North  American 
Civic  League  for  Immigrants,  New  York  City.  The  brief  is  as 
follows : 

Until  comparatively  recent  years,  it  has  been  generally  be- 
lieved in  the  United  States  that  any  man  who  wanted  work 
could  find  it.  This  belief  was,  in  part,  a  survival  from  old  vil- 
lage conditions,  where  living  was  cheap  and  standards  frugal. 
In  part,  it  was  the  natural  result  of  the  unparalleled  advantages 
of  our  industrial  and  economic  condition ;  the  stupendous  devel- 
opment of  agricultural  and  industrial  resources  of  very  large 
areas  made  it  seem  impossible  that  a  man  should  be  unable  to 
find  work  of  some  sort  to  do. 

Gradually,  however,  it  became  apparent  that  capable  men  were 
out  of  work.  Various  reasons  were  assigned  for  this — a  strike, 
tariff  changes,  an  election— anything,  in  short,  that  would  prove 
that  the  need  was  only  individual  or  local,  or,  if  general,  still  only 
temporary. 

This  position  was  tenable  only  as  long  as  no  official  investi- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  i  : '  101 

gations  had  been  made  into  the  subject.  About  15  years  ago, 
however,  the  collection  of  statistics  relating  to  Unemployment 
was  begun  by  several  federal  departments  and  state  commis- 
sions and  bureaus.  The  results  of  these  investigations  are  stated 
here  very  briefly. 

The  1900  federal  census  shows  that  22.3  per  cent  of  all  persons 
having  gainful  occupations  were  not  working,  either  at  their 
regular  occupation  or  at  any  other,  at  some  time  during  the 
census  year.  The  report  on  Unemployment  summarizes  as  fol- 
lows, its  tables  showing  the  number  of  persons  unemployed  in 
various  occupations : 

It  appears  that  approximately  four  persons  out  of  five  who  claimed 
gainful  occupations  were  continuously  employed  throughout  the  census  year, 
while  the  fifth  person  was  idle  for  a  period  varying  from  one  to  twelve 
months. 

Over  2,600,000  men  and  nearly  500,000  women  were  out  of 
work  for  four  to  six  months,  and  over  500,000  men  were  out  of 
work  seven  months  or  over. 

In  1901  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Labor  made  an  investigation 
into  the  cost  of  living  of  25,440  families  of  workmen  or  persons 
on  salaries  of  not  over  $1,200  a  year  distributed  over  the  United 
States.  The  report  shows  that  about  half — 49.81  per  cent — of  the 
24,402  heads  of  families  were  idle  for  part  of  the  year. 

The  Geological  Survey  reports  on  coal  mining  from  1890  to 
1910  show  that  workmen  in  bituminous  mines  lost  from  22  per 
cent  to  43  per  cent  of  their  working  time  annually,  and  workmen 
in  anthracite  mines  from  23.7  per  cent  to  50  per  cent,  disregarding 
the  year  1902,  when  the  great  strike  took  place. 

The  committee  on  Unemployment  of  the  New  York  state  com- 
mission, appointed  in  1909  to  inquire  into  the  question  of  em- 
ployers' liability  and  other  matters,  said  in  its  report: 

There  are  no  statistics  available  from  which  to  compute  the  actual 
number  of  those  without  work.  From  the  evidence  before  us  we  can  say 
with  certainty  only  this:  That  there  are  at  all  times  able-bodied  wage 
earners  out  of  work  in  every  city  of  the  state;  that  the  number  varies 
from  month  to  month  and  from  year  to  year;  that  it  grows  larger  during 
the  winter  and  during  the  years  of  industrial  depression,  and  reaches  tre- 
mendous proportions  every  15  or  20  years.  A  conservative  estimate  would 
be  that  in  ordinary  years  of  business  activity  the  least  number  out  of 
work  is  about  3  per  cent  of  the  wage  earners  regularly  employed  in  the 
industries  of  the  state,  while  during  the  winter  months  the  number  would 
rise  to  8  or  10  per  cent.  In  a  year  of  business  depression  like  1908  the 

10 


102  SELECTED.  ARTICLES  ON 

number  out  of  work  ranges  from  15  to  30  per  cent.  These  estimates  do 
not  include  all  the  unemployed.  Over  and  above  the  percentages  here  given 
are  the  beggars,  tramps,  and  vagrants,  who  have  entirely  dropped  out  of 
our  industries. 

What  the  number  of  men  now  unemployed  in  any  given  place 
is  no  one  knows.  That  the  number  has  been  unusually  large 
during  the  winter  of  1913-14  is  admitted  even  by  those  who 
challenge  the  accuracy  of  estimates  made  by  organizations  or 
investigators. 

Industrial  centers  such  as  New  York  City  and  Chicago  have 
naturally  shown  the  highest  degree  of  Unemployment.  Official 
bulletins  published  by  Commissioner  James  M.  Lynch,  of  the 
New  York  state  department  of  labor,  state  that  the  percentage 
of  Unemployment  among  union  workmen  was  greater  in  the 
fiscal  year  from  September  30,  1912,  to  September  30,  1913,  than 
in  any  other  year  since  1896,  with  the  single  exception  of  1908. 
Sixteen  and  one-tenth  per  cent  of  the  union  men  reporting  to 
the  department  were  idle  on  September  30,  1913.  Through  the 
winter  this  percentage  rose  steadily;  on  December  31,  1913,  it 
was  38.8  per  cent.  The  percentage  of  unemployed  from  July  to 
December  was  22.7  per  cent — nearly  equal  to  that  in  1908,  when 
it  was  22.9  per  cent.  Ninety-two  per  cent  of  this  enforced  idle- 
ness was  due  to  lack  of  work,  and  only  2  per  cent  to  labor 
disputes. 

These  are  the  figures  for  New  York  state.  In  New  York  City 
the  percentage  was  even  higher — 45.5  per  cent  at  the  end  of 
December.  As  two-thirds  of  the  state's  union  members  in  the 
building  industry  and  over  90  per  cent  of  the  members  in  the 
clothing  trades  live  in  New  York  City,  the  number  of  unem- 
ployed in  the  city  reached  a  very  high  mark.  The  number  of 
men  applying  for  shelter  at  the  municipal  lodging  house  was 
more  than  double  the  number  for  the  same  months  in  the  pre- 
ceding years.  The  Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of 
the  Poor  reported  on  February  3,  1914,  after  a  careful  investiga- 
tion for  two  months  by  experienced  agents,  that  325,000  men  were 
out  of  work  in  New  York  City.  This  estimate  the  association 
believes  to  be  conservative.  Employment  agencies,  homes,  and 
philanthropical  societies  tell  the  same  story. 

All  the  industrial  centers  in  the  United  States  have  been 
affected.  The  Pacific  coast  has  had  to  face  the  same  problem  as 
the  Atlantic.  In  January  Chief  of  Police  Sebastian,  of  Los 


UNEMPLOYMENT  103 

Angeles,  stated  that  30,000  persons  there  were  unemployed,  in- 
cluding 10,000  women.  So  large  a  number  have  been  unemployed 
in  San  Francisco  that  the  relief  measures  within  the  city's  means 
were  altogether  inadequate.  In  Chicago  Mayor  Harrison  ap- 
pointed a  commission  on  Unemployment,  which  began  work  with 
$25,000  to  expend  as  it  deemed  expedient. 

Most  of  these  men  out  of  work  are  capable  and  willing.  James 
T.  Hunt,  manager  of  the  Bowery  Mission,  227  Bowery,  says : 
"Most  of  the  men  in  our  bread  line  are  Americans,  husky,  strong, 
and  willing."  Almost  all  the  men  coming  to  the  Municipal 
Lodging  House  in  New  York  City  are  between  21  and  50.  The 
Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of  the  Poor  says  that 
most  of  the  325,000  have  homes  and  families  to  support. 

What  the  exact  truth  is  no  one  knows.  Some  persons  are 
interested  in  showing  only  a  few  men  out  of  work,  and  others 
in  maintaining  that  a  very  great  many  are.  Some  try  to  make 
light  of  a  situation  that  they  really  know  to  be  very  grave;  some 
try  to  make  a  grave  one  seem  blacker  still.  Such  investigations 
as  those  here  cited,  however,  show  that  the  truth  does  not  lie 
either  in  the  mouths  of  those  who  say,  "All  is  well,"  nor  of 
those  who  say,  "All  is  wrong."  Just  where  between  those  posi- 
tions it  does  lie,  no  one  knows ;  and  yet  a  fairly  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  extent  of  Unemployment  is  indispensable  for  an  in- 
telligent attempt  to  improve  the  situation.  How  is  it  possible 
to  propose  a  remedy  unless  you  know  what  it  is  to  be  a  remedy 
for,  unless  you  know  how  deep  and  how  extensive  a  need  it  is 
to  meet? 

Still  less  do  we  know  the  character  and  quality  of  the  men 
out  of  work.  Even  where  we  know  accurately  that  25,000  men 
are  unemployed  in  a  certain  city,  we  do  not  know  what  per- 
centage of  them  are  capable  artisans  who  simply  can  not  find  a 
job  and  what  percentage  are  men  simply  too  shiftless  to  keep 
a  job  if  they  had  it.  At  present  we  have  only  one  rough, 
crude  test  for  separating  them — the  woodpile  or  the  rock  pile. 
We  must  learn  to  distinguish  between  the  real  unemployed  work- 
man and  the  man  who  is  either  shiftless  by  nature  or  who  has 
grown  lazy  or  disheartened  from  continual  ill  luck. 

The  need  for  distinguishing  between  these  classes  becomes 
sharply  apparent  when  the  question  of  relief  or  remedy  comes 
up.  What  is  a  help  to  one  class  may  be  a  harm  to  another. 
One  class  needs  and  wants  only  to  be  put  into  connection  with 


104  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

work;  the  other  class  needs,  though  it  may  not  want,  to  be  put 
to  work  under  some  sort  of  supervision,  where  the  connection 
between  work  and  subsistence  is  insisted  upon.  Outside  of  these 
classes  are  the  feeble-minded  and  the  incorrigible,  needing  still 
another  remedy — segregation. 

This,  then,  is  the  situation  in  the  United  States  at  present; 
enough  Unemployment  at  all  times  to  be  a  burden  on  the  com- 
munity, with  the  amount  rising  at  certain  seasons  and  under 
certain  conditions  to  a  degree  sufficient  to  strain  seriously  our 
city  governments.  The  newspapers  have  made  us  familiar  with 
the  dreary  progress  of  this  situation.  We  read  of  bread  lines, 
soup  kitchens,  "armies"  of  the  unemployed  starting  to  march  to 
Washington  and  driven  out  of  a  town  with  the  fire  hose,  other 
crowds  invading  churches  until  we  get  confused  between  the 
honest  desperation  rising  out  of  sore  need  and  the  intentional 
sowing  of  seeds  of  violence  in  strong  men  sick  at  heart  from 
drinking  the  bitter  brew  of  misery  and  charity. 

The  situation  is  sad  indeed;  but  the  saddest  part  of  it  is 
that  most  of  the  suffering  and  degradation  is  unnecessary.  Un- 
employment can  always  be  accounted  for  in  part  as  due  to 
business  depressions,  changes  in  fashion,  changes  of  location  of 
an  industry,  and  the  seasonal  nature  of  some  trades ;  but  one 
great  fundamental  cause,  and  the  one  that  could  be  most  easily 
changed  is  the  lack  of  organization  in  the  matter  of  the  supply 
of  available  labor  power.  The  market  for  cotton,  potatoes,  steel, 
paper,  leather,  for  almost  any  commodity  has  been  organized, 
so  that  buyers  and  sellers  know  where  they  can  learn  what 
the  supply  and  demand  are.  But  the  man  with  his  power  of 
work  to  sell  has  still  to  go  from  factory  door  to  factory  door 
trying  to  peddle  it  out. 

In  most  states  the  supplying  of  this  need  has  been  left  entirely 
to  employment  agencies,  private  or  charitable,  all  acting  inde- 
pendently of  each  other  and  competing,  instead  of  cooperating. 
In  New  York  City,  for  instance,  there  jare  about  850  private 
agencies.  A  man  at  the  end  of  his  resources  can  barely  pay 
the  fee  in  one  of  these.  The  chance  that  he  will  pick  out  the 
one  that  can  place  him  is  small.  But  the  agency  he  chances  to 
enter  takes  his  fee,  and  tells  him  to  call  again,  or  sends  him 
out  of  "the  state  to  a  place  where  no  work  exists,  or  where  he  is 
discharged,  after  a  week's  work,  to  make  room  for  another  man 
—with  another  fee.  There  are  also  many  racial,  philanthropic, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  105 

or  civic  employment  agencies.  But  there  is  no  one  place  in 
New  York  City  or  Chicago  or  San  Francisco  where  the  informa- 
tion collected  at  the  different  agencies  is  brought  together.  No 
one  person  and  no  one  organization  has  any  grasp  of  the  entire 
situation. 

The  New  York  commission  found  that  60  per  cent  of  the  750 
factories  it  investigated  in  the  state  depended  entirely  for  their 
supply  of  labor  on  applications  at  the  factory  doors.  How 
slight  the  chance  is  that  the  workman  will  get  to  just  the  factory 
that  needs  the  kind  of  work  he  can  do  may  easily  be  conjectured. 
The  fluctuating  demand  for  labor  draws  to  it  a  reserve  force  of 
workmen;  each  industrial  city  becomes  a  market,  with  men 
going  about  looking  for  a  vacant  place.  The  more  there  are  of 
such  separate  markets,  the  less  is  the  chance  that  the  man  and 
the  work  will  come  together. 

The  result  is  that  though  thousands  of  men  are  needed  m 
small  towns,  and  thousands  more  on  farms,  they  have  no  way  of 
finding  out  where  to  go.  There  is  no  central  office  that  gathers 
up  and  records  the  demand ;  they  must  go  from  door  to  door. 
So  crowds  flock  from  the  country,  where  they  are  needed,  to  the 
congested  industrial  cities  and  go  about  vainly  looking  for  work, 
while  work  in  other  cities  or  states  calls  out  for  them.  Har- 
vests ripen  and  fall  only  partly  garnered,  because  workmen 
idle  in  eastern  cities  cannot  get  to  western  plains.  Even  the 
men  and  women  that  are  working  suffer,  too ;  for  when  too 
many  are  consuming  and  too  few  producing,  all  must  pay  the 
price.  The  idle  men  and  women,  in  the  flower  of  their  strength, 
lift  up  their  empty  hands  for  aid — hands  empty  of  all  the  good 
things  of  life.  From  one  side  comes  the  chorus,  "Give  us 
work,"  and  from  another,  "Give  us  men,"  until  a  person  looking 
at  these  empty  praying  hands  and  listening  to  these  confused 
cries  feels  as  if  he  were  flying  with  Satan  through  the  realms 
of  Chaos  and  Old  Night. 

The  lack  of  supervision  exercised  over  employment  agents 
doing  an  interstate  business  enables  them  to  take  advantage  of 
men  in  bitter  need,  well  knowing  that  these  men  will  never  be 
able  to  return  to  prosecute  them.  Exorbitant  fees,  false  infor- 
mation about  wages  or  conditions  of  work,  men  sent  to  places 
where  no  work  exists,  are  examples  of  complaints  brought 
against  these  agents.  That  this  is  no  slight  matter  appears  from 
the  fact  that  in  New  York  City  alone  63,691  contract  laborers, 


106  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

exclusive  of  farm  hands,  were  sent  out  of  New  York  in  1913 
to  different  parts  of  the  country  by  licensed  agents.  How  many 
were  sent  out  by  unlicensed  agents  no  one  knows.  According 
to  the  report  of  the  commissioner  of  licenses  in  New  York,  the 
commonest  form  of  deceit  is  the  falsifying  of  conditions : 

Men  are  told  that  they  are  going  to  do  grading  work,  and  when  they 
are  shipped  fifty  or  a  hundred  miles  outside  of  New  York  they  find  that 
they  have  to  work  standing  up  to  their  knees  in  water.  Some  are  told 
they  have  to  work  on  roads  and  find  that  they  must  go  into  tunnels.  Good 
sleeping  quarters  are  promised  to  some,  who  are  then  made  to  sleep  on  the 
floors  of  shanties  without  even  straw  to  lie  upon.  Proper  food  and  cheap 
board  are  described,  which  turn  out  to  be  unfit  food  furnished  at  extor- 
tionate prices  by  the  bordante.  Men  are  led  to  believe  that  they  can  earn 
$3  a  day,  when  frequently  they  can  not  earn  $i  a  day,  and  must  pay  the 
greater  part  of  it  for  food  and  sleeping  accommodations.  If  there  is  a 
strike  on  the  works  and  the  new  hands  are  sometimes  in  danger,  this  fact 
is  concealed.  If  they  have  no  money  they  cannot  get  away  and  must  bear 
with  the  conditions,  no  matter  how  unfortunate  they  are.  (Report  of  Com- 
missioner of  Licenses,  New  York  City,  1913-) 

The  situation  is  the  same  in  the  West  as  in  the  East — hun- 
dreds of  cases  of  fraud  going  unpunished  because  the  interstate 
nature  of  the  case  prevented  any  one  state  from  having  juris- 
diction. The  commissioner  of  labor  of  Wisconsin,  in  a  discus- 
sion on  the  regulation  of  employment  agents  before  the  Twenty- 
eighth  Convention  of  the  International  Association  of  Bureaus  of 
Labor,  gave  the  following  illustration  of  the  lack  of  jurisdiction 
in  such  a  case: 

One  contractor  had  hired  300  men  one  week  and  sent  them  out  about 
100  miles  on  the  railroad,  had  kept  them  three  days,  and  discharged  them. 
These  men  were  charged  $2  for  their  registration  and  $i  each  for  the  300 — 
which  made  $300 — went  to  the  men  that  hired  them,  and  the  other  $i  each 
— $300  for  the  300  employees — went  to  the  private  agencies.  Then  he  sent 
to  the  agency  and  said,  "Send  me  more  men;  I  can  not  use  these  any 
longer."  So  he  made  another  change,  and  during  the  week  his  fee  was 
$600,  and  the  contractor  of  the  railroad  got  $600  out  of  it.  We  do  not 
know  how  we  are  going  to  reach  them,  because  the  contractors  from  another 
state  come  in  and  send  their  orders  across  the  border  line.  (Page  85.) 

The  Bureau  of  Industries  and  Immigration  in  the  New  York 
Department  of  Labor  receives  many  complaints  every  year  from 
workmen  who  have  been  cheated  in  interstate  transactions  of 
this  kind.  Eight  men,  for  example,  were  sent  to  Pennsylvania 
to  do  construction  work — machinist  and  contract  work.  They 
were  put  to  work  in  front  of  furnaces — work  beyond  their 
physical  powers.  They  applied  to  the  Associated  Charities  in 


UNEMPLOYMENT  107 

the  neighborhood,  which  asked  the  bureau  to  prevent  this  sort 
of  misrepresentation.  The  bureau  could  take  no  action,  as  none 
of  the  complainants  could  come  into  its  jurisdiction.  In  another 
case  the  Italian  consul  reports  that  Italian  laborers  sent  by  a 
New  York  agency  to  Montgomery,  Ala.,  to  do  simple  excavating 
work  were  obliged  to  work  in  water  up  to  their  knees.  Some 
of  the  men  contracted  rheumatism,  had  to  leave  their  work,  and 
applied  to  the  consul  for  help.  Again  the  state  was  helpless. 

These  cases  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely  in  any  state  in 
the  Union.  Such  agents  build  upon  the  knowledge  that  work- 
men must  go  from  state  to  state  as  seasons  change  and  industrial 
conditions  alter. 

It  is  clear  that  the  lack  of  organization  in  the  matter  of  sup- 
plying labor  at  present  seriously  and  increasingly  endangers  the 
industrial  welfare  of  the  country.  No  country  can  hope  to 
advance  swiftly  that  has  to  carry  too  heavy  a  burden ;  those  that 
are  not  capable  of  carrying  themselves  along — the  sick,  the  in- 
jured, the  aged — form  a  sufficiently  heavy  burden  for  any  state. 
When  to  this  is  added  the  weight  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  asking  only  for  the  chance  to  support  themselves,  the 
burden  becomes  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  Aside  from  the  spiritual 
effect  on  a  nation  of  a  large  body  of  men  who  feel  in  dumb, 
uncomprehending  surprise  that  the  existing  order  is  somewhat 
becoming  inadequate — entirely  aside  from  this,  even  as  a  directly 
economic  matter,  this  country  cannot  afford,  in  the  face  of  the 
present  situation,  to  neglect  to  take  all  possible  means  of  bring- 
ing together  the  work  that  is  to  be  done  and  the  men  that  want 
to  do  it. 

Unemployment  is  a  matter  which  no  state  can  adequately 
treat,  because  it  has  neither  the  authority  nor  the  mechanism  for 
getting  information  about  labor  and  trade  conditions  beyond 
its  boundaries.  It  could  and  should  collect  all  possible  informa- 
tion about  such  matters  within  its  own  territory,  but  that  is 
altogether  insufficient  to  cope  with  a  problem  that  is  in  no  sense 
local,  but  national. 

Each  state  can  use  its  police  power  to  inspect  employment 
agencies,  and  can  deal  through  its  courts  with  intrastate  com- 
plaints. It  can  organize  the  supply  of  labor  within  the  state. 
Seventeen  states  have  established  free  employment  bureaus,  only 
four  of  which,  however,  have  adequate  appropriations  and 
efficient  methods. 


io8  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

Under  present  conditions,  however,  even  a  well-equipped 
state  employment  bureau  with  branch  offices  exchanging  labor 
bulletins  has  no  way  of  knowing  what  need  may  exist  beyond  its 
boundaries.  The  state  of  Rhode  Island  may  have  5,000  unem- 
ployed men  who  are  wanted  in  Minnesota,  but  Rhode  Island 
has  no  way  of  finding  that  out.  And  if  it  should  learn  of  the 
need  for  workmen  elsewhere,  it  has  no  authority  to  use  state 
funds  to  pay  the  men's  transportation. 

Many  of  the  most  serious  conditions,  however,  are  interstate 
in  their  very  nature,  and  the  mandate  of  a  state  runs  only  to 
the  boundary  thereof.  Moreover,  such  transactions  are  properly 
subject  only  to  federal,  not  state,  control;  for  if  the  sale  of 
electric  power  in  one  state  to  be  used  in  another  constitutes 
interstate  commerce,  so  does  the  disposition  of  working  power. 

It  is  objected  that  the  supplying  of  information  about  work 
and  workmen  may  safely  be  left  to  private  enterprise.  Present 
conditions  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  that  position. 

It  is  objected  that  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  can 
be  relied  on  to  bring  men  and  work  together.  The  answer  is 
that  it  has  not  done  so.  Theoretically  it  might  be  expected  to; 
practically  it  has  not  had  that  effect.  "It  is  a  condition  and  not 
a  .theory  that  confronts  us." 

It  is  objected  that  provision  for  Unemployment  should  be 
left  to  the  separate  action  of  municipalities  or  states.  It  is  suffi- 
cient answer  to  point  out  what  would  happen  to  any  municipality 
or  any  state  that  offered  to  provide  work  for  people  that  asked 
for  it.  Suppose  it  had  been  announced  this  winter  that  New 
York  or  Chicago  or  Washington  had  set  itself  to  provide  work 
for  the  unemployed. 

It  is  objected  that  state  regulation  of  private  agencies  and 
state  free  bureaus  supply  the  need  adequately.  About  one-third 
of  the  states  have  free  bureaus  of  some  sort,  and  about  half 
the  states  have  laws  regulating  private  agencies  in  some  fashion, 
but  these  laws  and  bureaus  have  not  ended  the  abuses  nor  met 
the  need. 

Even  if  all  the  states  did  it,  and  did  their  best,  that  would 
be  insufficient,  for  no  state  creates  or  controls  its  trade  condiN 
tions  any  more  than  it  creates  its  own  weather.  Many  matters 
a  state  can  regulate,  of  course.  It  can  compel  adjustments  and 
reorganizations  of  manufacturing  methods,  but  beyond  that 
degree  of  control  it  has  to  take  its  share  in  whatever  weather  is 
sweeping  across  the  country. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  109 

The  work  of  separate  state  bureaus  is  absolutely  necessary 
and  such  bureaus  should  be  established  and  brought  to  a  high 
degree  of  efficiency  in  every  state.  But  cooperating  with  them, 
bringing  together  all  their  observations  and  information,  there 
should  be  a  federal  bureau,  charged  with  the  duty  of  keeping 
watch  over  the  supply  of  labor  power  available  in  the  United 
States. 

The  purpose  of  the  federal  bureau  of  employment  would  be 
to  lessen  the  amount  of  Unemployment  in  the  United  States. 

It  would  endeavor,  first  of  all,  to  bring  together  workmen 
needing  work  and  employers  needing  workmen.  It  would  do 
this  through  a  central  office  at  Washington  and  a  system  of 
branch  labor  exchanges  in  important  industrial  and  commercial 
centers.  Each  exchange  should  collect  all  possible  information 
about  the  state  of  the  supply  of  available  labor  power  in  its 
district,  both  through  its  actual  work  as  a  free  employment 
office  and  by  any  other  means,  and  would  cooperate  with  the 
others  by  exchanging  reports  through  the  central  office.  The 
central  office  should  combine  these  local  reports  into  a  labor 
bulletin,  from  which  anyone  could  learn  the  demand  for  work 
and  for  workmen  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  The  bureau 
would  cooperate  to  the  fullest  possible  extent  with  all  existing 
state,  municipal,  and  private  employment  agencies. 

The  bureau  should  also  investigate  the  methods  of  all  persons, 
corporations,  and  agencies  procuring  employment  for  others 
who  carry  on  an  interstate  business.  The  head  of  the  bureau 
should  have  power  to  license,  inspect,  and  thus  effectively  control 
the  work  of  all  such  interstate  agencies. 

The  bureau  would  also  make  a  thorough  and  comprehensive 
study  of  the  causes  of  Unemployment,  in  order  to  determine 
which  of  them  are  due  to  conditions  that  can  be  altered  and 
which  must  be  met  as  an  inevitable  incident  to  industry.  It 
would  study  possible  means  for  avoiding  the  dislocating  effect 
of  seasonal  industries  and  for  lessening  the  amount  of  casual 
labor.  It  would  try  to  see  what  relation  there  is  between  Unem- 
ployment and  the  lack  of  vocational  guidance  and  industrial 
training.  It  would  investigate  the  various  systems  of  employ- 
ment insurance  and  other  methods  of  relief  in  operation  in 
foreign  countries,  to  judge  whether  some  such  provision  would 
be  applicable  to  American  conditions. 

Only  by  a  definite,  scientific,  national  plan  can  this  country 
hope  to  solve  the  question  of  Unemployment.  By  not  attempting 


i  io  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

to  solve  it,  the  country  is  playing  into  the  hands  of  those  that 
say  that  no  solution  is  possible. 


Political  Science  Quarterly.    29:28-46.    March,  1914 

Theory   of    Public   Employment   Offices    and   the    Principles   of 
their   Practical  Administration.     William   M.   Leiserson 

Public  employment  offices  present  for  discussion  three  im- 
portant considerations :  the  theory  on  which  they  are  based,  the 
principles  of  their  practical  administration,  and  their  use  as 
agencies  for  dealing  with  Unemployment.  Our  main  attention, 
however,  needs  to  be  given  to  administrative  principles.  The 
history  of  public  employment  offices  in  the  United  States  illus- 
trates well  how  legislation  may  fail  of  its  purpose  because  little 
attention  is  devoted  to  problems  of  administration.  Laws  are 
passed  after  long  campaigns  of  education  to  arouse  the  public 
to  a  realization  of  their  importance  and  to  an  understanding  of 
their  theoretic  principles.  This  done,  those  who  have  been  most 
active  in  studying  the  subject  drop  the  matter  and  political 
workers  are  appointed  to  administer  the  laws. 

It  is  twenty-three  years  since  Ohio  established  the  first  state 
free  employment  offices  in  the  United  States.  Since  that  time 
almost  half  the  states  in  the  union  have  followed  its  example. 
At  the  present  writing  more  than  sixty  employment  offices  are 
in  existence  in  eighteen  different  states.1  Yet  nothing  like  a 
body  of  scientific  administrative  principles  has  been  developed 
among  them.  There  is  no  uniformity  in  their  methods,  no  co- 
operation between  offices,  no  definite  policies  of  management. 
There  is  little  or  no  comprehension  of  the  nature  of  the  business. 

The  circumstances  which  have  led  to  the  establishment  of 
public  employment  offices  in  the  United  States  have  in  the  main 
been  three:  the  abuses  of  private  employment  agencies,  the  lack 
of  farm  labor  in  agricultural  states,  and  the  presence  of  great 
numbers  of  unemployed  wage-earners  in  the  industrial  centers. 
To  these  must  be  added  the  example  of  foreign  governments 

1  Col.,  Conn..  111.,  Ind.,  Kans.,  Md.,  Mass.,  Mich.,  Minn.,  Mo.,  Mont., 
Neb.,  N.  J.,  Ohio,  Okla.,  R.  I.,  Wash.,  West  Va.,  and  Wis.  Most  of  these 
offices  are  under  the  management  of  the  labor  departments  of  the  respective 
states.  Montana  has  a  statute  requiring  every  city  of  the  first  and  the 
second  class  to  maintain  a  municipal  free  employment  office,  and  in  Wash- 
ington five  cities  have  established  offices  on  their  own  initiative.  The  city 
clerk  of  Newark,  N.  J.,  conducts  a  free  employment  bureau  in  his  office. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  in 

and  the  growing  belief  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  state  to  prevent 
unnecessary  idleness.  Whatever  the  reasons  for  the  establish- 
ment of  the  offices,  however,  the  results  have  in  most  cases  been 
the  same.  The  administration  has  been  placed  in  the  hands  of 
people  unfamiliar  with  their  design  and  purpose.  These  officials 
have  either  mismanaged  the  offices  so  that  they  had  to  be  dis- 
continued or  else  they  have  performed  their  duties  in  a  perfunc- 
tory and  wholly  ineffective  manner. 

This,  in  short,  has  been  the  history  of  public  employment 
offices  in  the  United  States.  In  theory  they  were  designed  to 
furnish  clearing  houses  for  labor,  to  bring  work  and  the  worker 
together  with  the  least  delay,  and  to  eliminate  the  private  labor 
agent,  whose  activity  as  middleman  is  so  often  accompanied  by 
fraud,  misrepresentation  and  extortion.  In  practice,  far  from 
supplanting  private  agencies,  the  free  offices  have  not  even 
maintained  an  effective  competition  against  them.  With  few 
exceptions  their  operations  have  been  on  a  small  scale,  their 
methods  unbusinesslike,  and  their  statistics  valueless  if  not  unre- 
liable. Four  states  and  about  half  a  dozen  cities  have  discon- 
tinued their  offices,  and  most  of  those  now  in  operation  are 
constantly  on  the  defensive  to  maintain  their  existence. 


Shall  we  say  then  that  public  employment  offices  are  a  failure 
and  give  up  all  attempts  to  establish  them?  If  we  do,  we  should 
have  to  say  that  our  state  labor  departments,  our  factory  inspec- 
tion and  our  health  departments  should  also  be  given  up ;  for 
their  history  in  the  United  States  has  been  about  the  same  ns 
that  of  the  employment  offices.  They  have  been  manned  without 
merit  and  their  work  is  crude  and  ineffective. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  however,  that  employment  offices, 
like  factory  inspection  and  the  health  work  of  our  governments, 
are  based  on  sound  principles.  Their  lack  of  success  has  been 
due  mainly  to  the  general  administrative  inefficiency  of  our 
government  work.  In  Europe  where  public  labor  exchanges 
have  been  most  successful,  they  are  by  no  means  all  equally 
successful.  Some  German  cities  have  active,  businesslike  labor 
exchanges,  while  in  others  the  work  of  such  bureaus  is  as  sleepy 
and  inefficient  as  in  any  of  our  own.  The  lesson  is  obvious.  If 
we  wish  successful  public  employment  offices  we  must,  after 
the  example  of  the  larger  German  cities,  put  persons  in  charge' 


ii2  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

of  them  who  understand  the  business,  who  know  its  principles 
and  its  technique,  and  who  will  work  with  vigor  and  energy  to 
make  their  offices  successful. 

But  should  we  desire  public  employment  offices  at  all?  Is 
the  state  justified  in  maintaining  such  offices?  These  questions 
must  be  settled  at  the  beginning.  Many  thoughtful  people  see 
no  necessity  for  such  public  agencies.  Samuel  Gompers,  in  the 
American  Federationist,  recently  stated  that  the  existing  agencies 
were  ample  for  distributing  the  labor  forces  of  the  county. 
The  Massachusetts  commission  to  investigate  employment  offices 
argued : 

For  well  known  reasons  we  never  think  of  establishing  governmental 
grocery  stores  and  governmental  dry  goods  shops  in  the  hope  of  having 
the  community  better  served  than  by  private  enterprise.  The  same  reasons 
should  clearly  govern  our  attitude  toward  employment  offices,  unless  it  is 
shown  that  the  employment  office  business  is  different  from  other  business. 

Public  employment  offices,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Massachusetts 
commission,  should  not  be  established  to  compete  "with  the 
private  office  in  placing  regular  domestic,  mercantile  or  other 
skilled  labor." 

The  trouble  with  these  views  is  that  they  are  held  by  people 
who  do  not  understand  the  nature  of  the  employment  business. 
That  three  months  spent  by  the  Massachusetts  commission  in 
studying  employment  offices  was  not  sufficient  to  learn  the  busi- 
ness is  evident  from  the  comparison  with  groceries  and  dry 
goods  stores.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  comparison  should  be 
with  the  post  office,  the  school  system,  the  distribution  of  weather 
and  crop  reports,  etc. 

In  order  to  judge  correctly  of  the  public  employment  offices 
we  must  know  the  principles  upon  which  they  are  based.  What 
then,  is  an  employment  office?  And  what  are  its  purposes  and 
functions?  In  a  sentence,  an  employment  office  may  be  defined 
as  a  place  where  buyer  and  seller  of  labor  may  meet  with  the 
least  possible  difficulty  and  the  least  loss  of  time.  The  function 
of  an  employment  office  is  best  expressed  by  the  British  term 
"labor  exchange."  Exchange  implies  a  market.  It  is  an  organi- 
zation of  the  labor  market  for  buying  and  selling  labor,  just 
as  stock  exchanges,  produce  exchanges,  and  wheat  pits  are 
organized  to  facilitate  the  buying  and  selling  of  their  products. 

Now  why  do  we  need  an  organized  labor  market?  Employers 
are  constantly  hiring  and  discharging  employees.  Workers  are 


UNEMPLOYMENT  113 

constantly  looking  for  employment.  The  New  York  Commission 
on  Unemployment  reported  in  1911  that  four  out  of  every  ten 
wage-earners  work  irregularly  and  seek  employment  at  least 
once,  probably  many  times,  during  the  year.  Moreover,  it  found 
Unemployment  and  unfilled  demand  for  labor  existing  side  by 
side.  Census  returns,  manufacturing  statistics  and  special  in- 
vestigations all  reveal  the  intermittent  character  of  the  demand 
which  necessitates  a  reserve  of  labor  employed  not  steadily  but 
shifting  from  place  to  place  as  wanted. 

How  does  a  wage-earner  find  employment?  Interesting  light 
is  thrown  upon  this  question  by  statements  made  to  the  New 
York  commission  by  750  employers.  Four  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  of  them,  or  over  60  per  cent,  stated  that  they  could  always 
get  all  the  help  they  needed,  and  practically  all  hired  their  forces 
from  persons  who  made  personal  application  at  their  plants. 
Two  hundred  advertised  in  newspapers  and  hired  from  among 
those  who  made  personal  application  at  the  plant.  About  fifty 
used  employment  agencies  and  ten  depended  on  trade  unions. 
The  main  reliance,  therefore,  is  placed  upon  applications  directly 
at  the  plants  and  upon  the  newspapers.  What  this  means  is 
well  illustrated  in  a  communication  sent  to  the  Chicago  Tribune 
by  a  working  girl.  She  wrote : 

For  the  last  ten  days  I  have  been  going  to  the  loop  every  day  to  look 
for  work.  I  am  there  at  8  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I  look  for  work  until 
ii.  From  ii  to  12  is  the  lunch  period  in  most  big  establishment,  and  it  is 
useless  to  try  to  see  anybody  at  that  time.  My  lunch  in  a  cafeteria  gives 
me  a  rest  of  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes.  Then  I  am  back  again  on  the  side- 
walk. The  chase  from  building  to  building  during  the  morning  and  the 
constant  dodging  of  automobiles  tire  me.  Is  there  a  place  where  I  can  go 
to  rest  up? 

The  girl's  question  does  not  concern  us  here  so  much  as  her 
method  of  seeking  employment.  Think  of  the  waste  of  time 
and  energy  and  the  discouragement  in  going  from  door  to  door 
to  ask  if  any  help  is  needed.  She  had  been  doing  this  for  ten 
days  without  success ;  and  the  significant  thing  about  her  search 
for  work  is  that  the  demand  for  women  workers  is  generally 
greater  than  the  supply,  and  this  was  in  a  busy  month,  July, 
during  a  fairly  prosperous  year,  1913.  What  must  be  the  waste 
and  discouragement  of  male  workers  whose  labor  is  not  so  much 
in  demand? 

This  the  price  we  pay  for  lack  of  organization  in  the  buying 
and  selling  of  labor.  The  reason  most  employers  can  get  all 


ii4  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

the  need  at  their  gates  or  by  inserting  an  advertisement  in  a, 
newspaper  is  because  there  are  thousands  of  men  and  women 
who,  like  this  girl,  go  from  door  to  door,  hundreds  responding 
to  every  cue  given  in  the  newspapers.  The  labor  market  is  still 
in  the  peddling  stage.  While  dealing  in  almost  all  the  important 
articles  of  trade  is  now  systematically  organized  with  exchanges 
and  salesmen  and  trade  papers,  labor  must  still  be  peddled  from 
door  to  door  by  each  individual  worker.  A  recent  investigation 
in  the  Philippines  describes  how  chair-makers  and  box-makers 
after  working  up  a  stock  of  goods  take  them  to  sell  on  a 
peddling  tour  in  ox  carts.  When  they  want  wood  for  their 
manufactures  a  member  of  the  household  sets  out  on  the  road 
and  buys  the  first  tree  that  suits  his  purpose.  Our  industries 
have  developed  far  beyond  this,  but  in  the  buying  and  selling  of 
labor  they  are  almost  all  in  this  primitive  stage. 

The  economic  waste  from  lack  of  organization  of  the  labor 
market  shows  itself  in  the  development  of  many  small  markets. 
Each  factory  gate  and  industrial  district  of  a  city  tends  to 
become  a  market.  Each  draws  a  reserve  of  labor  ready  to  meet 
the  fluctuating  demands  of  employers.  The  multiplication  of 
markets  makes  the  necessary  labor  reserve  unduly  large  and 
increases  the  maladjustment  between  supply  and  demand.  Idle 
wage-earners  and  vacant  positions  often  fail  to  meet.  There  is 
an  oversupply  of  labor  in  one  place  and  a  shortage  in  another. 
Some  occupations  are  over-crowded,  while  others  have  not  a 
sufficient  supply.  An  organized  market  for  labor  is  needed  for 
the  same  reason  that  other  markets  are  organized :  to  eliminate 
waste,  to  facilitate  exchange,  to  bring  the  supply  and  demand 
quickly  together,  to  develop  the  efficiency  that  comes  from 
specialization  and  a  proper  division  of  labor.  A  good  manufac- 
turer may  be  a  poor  man  at  getting  business,  and  many  good 
workmen  are  poor  hands  at  finding  jobs.  An  organized  labor 
market  will  enable  workers  to  attend  to  their  business  of 
working  and  will  develop  efficient  dealers  in  labor  who  will  be 
specialized  as  employment  agents. 

II 

Granting  the  need  of  an  organized  labor  market,  is  it  the  duty 
of  the  state  to  organize  it?  Can  we  not  depend  upon  private 
enterprise  to  perform  this  function  as  we  do  in  the  grocery 
or  the  dry  goods  business? 


UNEMPLOYMENT  115 

It  would  seem  a  sufficient  answer  that  private  enterprise  up 
to  the  present  has  not  undertaken  so  to  organize  the  labor 
market.  Business  men  have  allowed  the  distribution  of  labor 
to  lag  more  than  a  hundred  years  behind  the  general  develop- 
ment of  industry,  not  without  good  reasons.  The  main  reason 
has  been  that  ordinarily  the  entire  burden  of  the  resulting  malad- 
justment is  borne  by  the  wage-earner.  It  is  he  who  suffers 
from  the  loss  of  time  and  energy.  Moreover  the  failure  to  get 
a  job  quickly  makes  him  willing  to  take  work  at  any  price  and 
thus  tends  to  keep  wages  down.  Wherever  employers  have  felt 
a  lack  of  labor  they  have  developed  some  form  of  organized 
search  for  help.  Thus  railroad  and  lumber  companies  and  other 
large  employers  of  labor  have  labor  agencies,  and  private  labor 
agents  cater  mainly  to  such  employers. 

But  there  are  other  reasons  why  private  enterprise  has  failed 
to  organize  this  service  properly.  The  nature  of  the  business 
is  such  that  to  be  successful  it  really  needs  to  be  a  monopoly. 
It  is  like  the  post  office  and  not  like  the  grocery  business.  The 
service  is  a  public  utility.  Little  capital  is  required,  the  opera- 
tions are  simple  and  the  profits  are  large.  A  labor  agent  who 
ships  one  hundred  men  a  day  to  railroad  or  lumber  camps, 
which  is  a  comparatively  small  number,  ^makes  a  profit  of  $100 
or  more.  This  tends  to  multiply  labor  agencies  and  keep  each 
business  small.  In  New  York  City  alone  there  are  almost  a 
thousand  labor  agencies  and  yet  85  per  cent  of  the  employers 
never  use  them.  In  Chicago  there  are  some  600.  The  multi- 
plication of  agencies  has  the  same  evil  effect  as  the  multiplica- 
tion of  labor  markets.  They  merely  make  more  places  to  look 
for  work ;  and  the  more  places,  the  more  are  the  chances  that 
man  and  job  will  miss  each  other.  The  agencies,  being  in 
competition,  will  not  exchange  lists  and  an  applicant  for  work 
may  register  at  one  while  another  has  the  job  which  fits  him. 

Furthermore,  the  fee  which  private  labor  agents  must  charge 
for  their  services  precludes  them  from  becoming  efficient  dis- 
tributors of  the  labor  force  of  a  state.  At  the  very  time  when 
labor  is  most  over-supplied,  when  there  are  many  unemployed 
and  it  is  important  that  those  who  can  shall  go  to  work  at  once, 
then  the  fees  for  securing  employment  are  highest.  A  barrier 
is  thus  interposed  to  the  proper  flow  of  labor  in  the  channels 
where  it  is  needed.  Moreover,  there  is  always  the  temptation 
to  the  agent  to  fill  his  positions  from  among  people  who  are 


n6  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

already  employed.  This  practice  is  almost  universal  among 
private  labor  agents.  It  enables  them  to  create  new  vacancies 
and  to  earn  more  fees. 

But,  besides  private  employment  agencies  which  charge  fees 
for  their  services,  there  have  been  attempts  by  trade  unions, 
employers'  associations,  and  philanthropic  societies  to  organize 
the  placing  of  labor  without  charge.  These  have  generally 
failed,  and  for  obvious  reasons.  Wage-earners  will  not  go  in 
great  numbers  to  any  agency  maintained  by  employers,  because 
of  its  possible  use  for  blacklisting,  breaking  strikes  and  beating 
down  wages.  Employers,  on  the  other  hand,  will  not  patronize  a 
trade-union  office  except  where  the  trade  is  completely  organized. 
It  gives  the  union  too  powerful  a  weapon  in  the  struggle  for 
control.  If  there  is  any  one  condition  that  is  basic  in  the 
successful  management  of  an  employment  office,  it  is  that  it 
must  be  impartial,  as  between  employers  and  workers  in  their 
conflicts  over  conditions  of  employment.  As  for  philanthropic 
agencies,  the  tinge  of  charity  has  been  fatal  to  them.  No  self- 
respecting  wage-earner  wants  to  apply  at  a  charitable  agency,  and 
no  employer  will  call  for  efficient  and  steady  help  at  such  an 
institution. 

The  state,  then,  must  be  relied  upon  to  organize  the  labor 
market  because  the  gathering  of  information  about  opportunities 
for  employment  and  the  proper  distribution  of  this  information 
to  those  in  need  of  it,  requires  a  centralized  organization  which 
will  gather  all  the  demand  and  which  will  be  in  touch  with  the 
entire  available  supply;  because  the  gathering  and  the  distribu- 
tion must  be  absolutely  impartial;  because  wage-earners  and  em- 
ployers must  have  faith  in  the  accuracy  and  reliability  of  the 
information;  because  there  must  be  no  tinge  of  charity  to  the 
enterprise ;  and  because  fees  big  enough  to  interpose  a  barrier  to 
the  mobility  of  labor  must  be  eliminated. 

Now  it  may  be  true  that  employment  offices  perform  a  pub- 
lic function,  that  they  are  in  the  nature  of  public  utilities,  and 
yet  the  weaknesses  of  state  activity  may  be  such  as  to  make  it 
impossible  for  any  American  state  to  perform  the  service  prop- 
erly. Perhaps  we  ought  to  induce  enterprising  business  men  to 
organize  the  labor  market  on  a  large  scale  and  then  regulate 
them  as  we  do  our  railroads  and  street-car  companies.  This  is 
the  view  of  a  recent  French  writer  on  Unemployment,  M.  Bellet. 
Perhaps  we  ought  to  rely  upon  philanthropists  to  invest  in  this 


UNEMPLOYMENT  117 

business,  as  they  have  done  in  provident  loan  societies  and  model 
tenements,  with  the  expectation  of  a  moderate  return  on  the 
capital.  This  idea  was  expressed  by  Dr.  E.  T.  Devine  at  the 
International  Congress  on  Unemployment  in  Paris  in  1910,  and 
the  National  Employment  Exchange  established  in  New  York 
with  an  endowment  of  $100,000  is  an  embodiment  of  the  idea. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  enter  into  the  relative  merits  of 
governmental  regulation  and  governmental  operation.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  twenty-four  states  and  the  District  of  Columbia  have 
attempted  to  regulate  private  employment  agencies  and  have  made 
a  miserable  failure  of  it.  The  business  lends  itself  easily  to  fraud 
and  imposition  and  it  is  far  more  true  of  the  private  agencies 
than  of  the  public  offices  that  they  have  been  frauds  as  well  as 
failures. 

The  United  States  possesses  at  the  present  time  no  adequate  system, 
either  state  or  national,  for  the  regulation  of  private  employment  agencies, 
either  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  content  of  the  laws,  affording  regula- 
tions of  the  business  and  restrictions  as  to  how  the  business  shall  be  carried 
on,  or  as  to  proper  methods  of  enforcement.  x 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  more  adequate  regulation  might 
be  worked  out  in  the  future.  But  if  the  employment  business 
is  to  be  left  in  private  hands,  it  will  require  the  very  strictest 
supervision  to  insure  just  treatment  of  patrons  and  especially 
neutrality  in  labor  disputes.  The  regulation  could  never  be  effect- 
ive until  it  establishes  the  confidence  of  both  employers  and 
workers  in  the  fairness  and  impartiality  of  the  private  labor 
agents.  To  accomplish  this  the  state  would  have  to  employ  hon- 
est, energetic  and  capable  men  to  do  the  regulating  who  would 
understand  the  employment  business  thoroughly.  But  if  the  gov- 
ernment had  the  services  of  such  a  set  of  men  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  its  ability  to  manage  public  employment  offices  with 
more  success  than  private  enterprise  could,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than  the  fees  which  the  private  agency  would  have  to  charge. 
In  conclusion  on  this  point,  it  would  hardly  be  possible  for  the 
government,  unless  it  legalizes  a  monopoly,  to  prevent  the  multi- 
plication of  private  labor  agencies,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  in- 
creases maladjustment  between  labor  demand  and  supply. 

As  for  a  philanthropic  enterprise,  it  is  bound  to  be  considered 
a  charity  unless  it  charges  fees.  However  reasonable  it  may 

1  Labor  Laws  and  Their  Enforcement,  edited  by  Susan  M.  Kingsbury 
(Boston,  1911),  p.  366. 

11 


ii8  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

make  its  charges,  to  a  certain  extent  it  is  bound  to  defeat  its  own 
purpose  by  keeping  the  man  who  has  not  the  fee  from  a  job. 
But  its  greatest  handicap  will  be  that  it  must  be  supported  by 
men  with  money  to  invest,  that  is,  by  employers  of  labor.  Work- 
men will  always  look  upon  it  either  with  suspicion  or  with  the 
disdain  they  commonly  attach  to  paternal  enterprises.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  many  of  the  municipal  employment  offices  in  Germany 
did  start  as  philanthropic  enterprises,  but  it  was  found  more  effec- 
tive to  turn  them  over  to  the  cities  and  give  capital  and  labor  rep- 
resentation on  a  parity  in  their  management.  Much  the  better 
solution,  it  would  seem,  is  for  the  state  frankly  to  assume  not 
the  duty  of  supplying  work  to  the  unemployed  but  the  respon- 
sibility of  providing  wage-earners  with  information  regarding  the 
existing  opportunities  for  employment.  This  is  what  public  em- 
ployment offices  do.  The  function  would  be  no  different  from 
that  assumed  in  the  maintenance  of  the  schools  and  libraries  and 
the  post  office. 

But  will  not  the  furnishing  of  this  service  free  of  charge  by 
the  government  tend  to  undermine  the  self-reliance  of  the  work- 
ers? Is  it  not  in  fact  a  charity  although  everyone  may  take  ad- 
vantage of  it?  This  fear  has  been  expressed  whenever  the  state 
proposed  to  enter  upon  any  new  enterprise.  In  the  present  case 
it  is  due  to  a  misconception  of  the  nature  of  the  employment  busi- 
ness. Experience  has  shown  the  fear  to  be  groundless.  An  em- 
ployment office  does  not  give  work  to  anyone.  It  merely  tells 
the  applicant  where  there  is  employment.  To  secure  a  position 
the  applicant  must  have  the  same  qualities  of  fitness  and  efficiency 
as  if  he  had  got  in  touch  with  the  employer  after  a  day  of  pound- 
ing the  pavements.  It  is  information  and  not  jobs  that  employment 
offices  distribute.  The  employer  is  directed  to  the  supply  of 
labor ;  the  worker  is  informed  as  to  the  location  and  condition  of 
the  demand. 

It  is  because  the  welfare  of  the  majority  depends  upon  the 
widest  possible  distribution  of  reliable  information  of  this  kind 
that  the  state  is  justified  in  giving  the  service  free.  What  infor- 
mation could  be  more  important  to  a  people  than  to  know  ex- 
actly where  opportunities  are  open  for  men  to  apply  their  ener- 
gies to  make  a  living?  It  is  the  same  sort  of  information  that 
the  government  distributes  to  business  men  in  its  consular 
reports,  geological  surveys,  and  its  publications  on  the  natural 
resources  of  the  state.  The  importance  and  the  essentially  pub- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  119 

He  nature  of  the  information  gathered  and  distributed  by  employ- 
ment offices,  makes  the  performance  of  this  service  a  public  func- 
tion. 

Ill 

It  remains  now  to  be  shown  that  an  American  state  can  actually 
organize  the  labor  market  and  administer  the  organization  effi- 
ciently and  effectively.  The  Industrial  Commission  of  Wisconsin, 
created  in  1911,  determined  to  try  it;  and  two  years  experience 
with  a  definitely  outlined  plan  proves  that  it  can  be  done,  al- 
though it  will  take  several  more  years  to  complete  the  organiza- 
tion so  that  all  classes  of  labor  will  be  handled  by  the  employ- 
ment offices. 

Thanks  to  the  legislature,  the  commission  was  free  from  a 
handicap  with  which  almost  all  the  state  employment  offices  have 
started — namely,  a  rigid  statute  which  attempts  to  prescribe  the 
methods  of  doing  business.  The  effect  of  these  statutes  has  been 
to  hinder  the  enterprising  superintendent,  and  to  make  the  in- 
efficient one  feel  that  he  is  doing  all  that  the  law  requires. 
The  act  creating  the  Industrial  Commission  repealed  the  old  law 
and  in  its  place  gave  to  the  commission  general  powers  to 
establish  and  conduct  free  employment  offices  and  to  do  all  in 
its  power  to  bring  together  employers  seeking  employees  and 
working  people  seeking  employment.  The  commission  was 
authorized  to  make  any  rules  and  regulations  necessary  to 
carry  out  this  purpose,  but  no  fees  could  be  charged  either  to 
employers  or  employees.  Under  this  statute  the  commission 
was  free  to  adopt  any  methods  that  seemed  best  for  handling 
different  classes  of  labor,  and  it  could  change  its  methods 
whenever  experience  made  it  necessary. 

The  Industrial  Commission  first  investigated  the  old  free 
employment  offices  to  find  out  their  weakness  and  the  causes 
of  their  limited  activities.  Then  a  plan  of  reorganization  was 
worked  out  and  the  general  principles  of  a  new  management 
adopted.  The  cardinal  points  of  this  management  were  (i) 
civil  service,  (2)  neutrality  in  the  struggles  between  labor  and 
capital,  (3)  freedom  from  taint  of  charity  and  (4)  distribu- 
tion of  information,  not  jobs. 

This  done,  attention  was  devoted  to  the  selection  of  an 
efficient  force  of  employees  to  conduct  the  business.  The  first 
requisite  of  successful  employment  offices  is  that  the  persons 


120  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

who  manage  them  shall  know  their  business.  This  would  seem 
axiomatic,  but  it  is  a  weakness  of  all  government  activity  that 
officials  are  placed  in  positions  for  political  reasons  rather  than 
for  efficiency.  Fortunately  the  law  made  appointments  subject 
to  the  civil  service  regulations.  This  did  not  prevent  attempts 
at  political  pressure  but  it  enabled  the  Industrial  Commission 
to  ward  off  that  pressure  and  to  insist  on  merit.  The  state 
Civil  Service  Commission  cooperated,  and  in  Milwaukee  the 
entire  staff  of  five  employees  was  selected  by  an  examining 
board  on  which  the  Industrial  Commission,  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  and  employers  and  workers  were  represented. 

It  was  found  that  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  the  office 
force  should  be  made  up  of  economists  or  sociologists.  This 
work,  like  any  other  business,  can  be  learned  by  people  of  or- 
dinary intelligence.  But  appointment  for  merit  alone  must  be 
insisted  on,  and  tenure  of  office  must  be  permanent  as  long 
as  the  employees  pay  proper  attention  to  their  duties.  Also 
some  system  of  promotion  is  necessary,  so  that  the  ambi- 
tious clerk  in  a  public  employment  office  may  be  advanced  both 
in  position  and  salary.  To  hold  the  best  employees,  the  em- 
ployment offices  must  offer  a  career  for  the  enterprising  young 
man.  Nothing  kills  efficiency  more  quickly  than  the  knowl- 
edge that  a  man  can  not  get  ahead.  Fortunately  salaries  were 
not  fixed  by  law  and  promotion  with  increases  of  salaries  has 
been  possible. 

At  the  head  of  the  public  employment  office  was  placed  a 
person  who  not  only  understood  the  technique  of  the  business 
but  who  had  made  a  study  also  of  the  principles  on  which  it 
is  based,  of  its  relation  to  the  whole  industrial  life  of  the 
state,  and  to  the  pressing  problem  of  employment.  He  was 
depended  upon  to  train  the  staff,  supervise  its  work,  and  to 
develop  an  administrative  machine  that  would  be  permanent. 
The  subordinate  officials  knew  that  they  were  selected  because 
they  seemed  most  promising,  and  they  were  made  to  under- 
stand that  their  tenure  of  office  depended  upon  the  character 
of  their  work.  When  vacancies  occurred  the  most  fit  were 
promoted.  As  a  result,  Wisconsin  employment  offices  have  a 
force  of  employees  which  is  as  loyal,  hardworking,  and  inter- 
ested as  any  in  private  business. 

As  part  of  an  effective  administrative  machinery,  a  system 
of  representation  of  the  interests  involved  was  worked  out  in 


UNEMPLOYMENT  121 

order  to  insure  confidence  of  both  employers  and  workers 
and  impartiality  in  labor  disputes.  A  managing  committee  of 
employers  and  workmen  was  organized,  with  each  side  equally 
represented,  the  state  and  local  governments  also  having  mem- 
bers. This  committee  decides  all  matters  of  policy,  supervises 
the  expenditure  of  funds,  and  watches  the  work  of  the  office. 
It  sees  to  it  that  neither  one  side  nor  the  other  is  favored 
during  strikes. 

It  was  established  as  a  principle  of  the  management  that  the 
offices  are  not  charities,  but  pure  business  propositions  to  facili- 
tate the  meeting  of  buyers  and  sellers  of  labor.1  Fitness  for 
positions  is  the  prime  test  in  all  dealings.  If  applicants  are  un- 
employed because  of  aid  age,  inefficiency  or  disability  of  any  kind, 
it  will  be  no  help  either  to  them  or  to  the  community  to  refer 
them  to  positions  which  they  cannot  hold;  and  it  damages  the 
reputation  of  the  office. 

Finally  it  is  strictly  maintained  that  information  and  not 
jobs  are  distributed  by  the  public  employment  offices.  No  one 
is  assured  of  a  position  by  applying  for  work.  And  no  employer 
is  assured  of  help.  The  offices  merely  bring  to  the  notice  of 
working  people  the  opportunities  for  employment  for  which  they 
are  fitted,  and  connect  employers  with  the  available  supply  of 
labor  of  the  kind  they  need.  Employers  and  workers  are  left 
to  make  their  own  bargains.  No  responsibility  is  assumed  by 
the  management  beyond  the  accuracy  and  reliability  of  the 
representations  that  are  made  by  the  office  force  to  applicants 
for  employment  or  for  help. 

The  result  of  this  management  has  been  unusually  successful. 
The  Milwaukee  office  is  the  only  one  located  in  a  city  large 
enough  to  permit  of  great  expansion.  During  the  first  year  its 
business  was  increased  almost  fourfold  over  preceding  years 
when  it  was  conducted  as  the  majority  of  employment  offices  in 
the  United  States  have  been  managed.  Applications  for  employ- 
ment increased  from  6,300  to  23,000;  help  wanted  from  6,200  to 
29,000;  and  persons  referred  to  positions  from  6,000  to  24,000. 

1  Without  advertising  the  fact,  the  Wisconsin  employment  offices  do 
attempt  to  place  the  handicapped.  Aged,  crippled,  and  deaf-and-dumb 
workers  have  been  placed  in  positions  which  they  could  fill  when  the  super- 
intendents of  the  offices  have  explained  the  circumstances  to  the  employers. 
But  the  offices  must  establish  a  reputation  for  ability  to  select  capable 
employees  before  they  can  afford  to  handle  handicapped  workers  on  a  large 
scale.  A  complete  organization  of  the  labor  market  would  include  a  depart- 
ment for  the  handicapped. 


122  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

Of  the  24,000  referred,  it  was  ascertained  that  11,400  had  actu- 
ally been  hired.  During  the  second  year  the  business  increased 
over  the  first  by  about  40  per  cent.  The  first  year  the  cost  per 
verified  position  secured  was  60  cents.  The  second  year  it  was 
less  than  50  cents.  With  future  growth  this  cost  should  be 
much  further  reduced.  The  other  three  free  employment  offices 
in  Wisconsin  are  located  in  cities  with  populations  of  less  than 
45,000.  While  they  have  not  shown  such  remarkable  results, 
they  are  substantially  increasing  their  business. 

The  appropriation  made  by  the  legislature  for  the  work  of 
the  free  employment  offices  would  not  have  enabled  the  Indus- 
trial Commission  to  carry  out  its  plan.  An  agreement  was 
therefore  made  with  the  city  and  the  county  of  Milwaukee  by 
which  they  undertook  to  provide  the  funds  for  paying  rent,  light, 
heat,  telephone  and  janitor  service  for  the  office  in  Milwaukee. 
This  made  it  possible  to  conduct  the  office  on  a  scale  large 
enough  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  city,  and  as  business 
increased,  to  add  to  the  members  of  the  staff.  Further,  expendi- 
tures in  the  offices  at  La  Crosse  and  Oshkosh,  where  the  busi- 
ness is  small,  were  reduced  almost  half,  and  the  savings  were 
devoted  to  the  larger  offices  in  Superior  and  Milwaukee.  The 
legislature  of  1913  passed  a  law  which  authorizes  any  city, 
county  or  village  to  make  an  agreement  with  the  Industrial 
Commission  for  the  joint  maintenance  of  local  free  employ- 
ment offices.  This  will  enable  the  commission  to  spread  the 
Milwaukee  plan  all  over  the  state. 

Coming  a  little  farther  into  the  details  of  management,  an 
accurate  system  of  record-keeping  is  essential.  The  temptation 
is  ever  present  to  minimize  the  importance  of  records  and  to 
say  that  the  securing  of  employment  is  the  chief  function.  But 
it  is  not  possible  to  run  an  employment  office  properly  without 
a  careful  system  of  records  any  more  than  any  other  business 
can  be  conducted  without  a  set  of  books.  A  proper  selection  of 
applicants  for  positions  available  is  possible  only  by  a  careful 
system  of  registration.  Moreover  the  applicant  must  be  followed 
to  the  place  of  employment  and  a  record  kept  of  the  positions 
to  which  he  is  sent.  On  the  employer's  side  a  list  of  the  appli- 
cants referred  to  him  must  be  kept. 

Often  men  do  not  report  for  work;  sometimes  they  hire 
out  and  fail  to  appear  next  day,  or  they  work  a  few  hours  and 
quit  without  reason.  Employers,  too,  are  not  careful  to  repre- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  123 

sent  conditions  as  they  are.  They  sometimes  promise  more 
wages  than  they  pay,  or  if  board  and  lodging  are  a  part  of  the 
remuneration  they  may  not  provide  proper  food  or  accommoda- 
tions. Often  they  promise  steady  work  when  they  need  but 
temporary  help ;  and  some  employers  fail  to  pay  wages  promptly. 
The  record  of  such  facts  with  regard  to  both  employers  and 
employees  must  be  carefully  noted  in  order  that  each  applicant 
may  be  judged  correctly  and  the  character  of  the  positions  accu- 
rately presented  to  those  seeking  employment.  It  is  easy  to 
overload  an  office  with  bookkeeping,  but  if  the  managers  study 
the  work  thoroughly  and  are  not  afraid  to  make  changes  from 
time  to  time,  as  new  methods  suggest  themselves,  a  simple  card 
system  can  be  worked  out  which  is  easy  to  understand  and 
requires  little  time  to  maintain. 

The  record  system  in  the  Wisconsin  offices  is  designed  to 
help  in  securing  the  best  adjustment  of  men  to  positions,  and 
also  to  throw  light  on  conditions  of  demand  and  supply  in  the 
labor  market.  No  information  is  asked  of  applicants  for  employ- 
ment or  for  help  that  will  not  be  of  use  in  connecting  workers 
with  the  work  for  which  they  are  best  fitted. 

Applicants  for  employment  are  required  to  register,  giving 
name,  address,  age,  nationality,  conjugal  condition,  last  occu- 
pation, and  length  of  residence  in  the  city.  On  the  back  of  each 
applicant's  card  is  posted  all  the  employers  to  whom  he  has 
been  referred  for  work,  the  dates  on  which  he  was  sent,  and 
what  the  result  was — whether  he  secured  the  position  or  not, 
whether  he  failed  to  report,  or  was  hired  and  did  not  appear 
for  work. 

In  the  same  way  an  "Employer's  Order  Card"  registers  the 
demand  for  help,  the  kind  and  number  of  men  and  women 
wanted,  the  nature  of  the  experience  required,  the  wages  paid, 
whether  the  work  is  steady  or  temporary,  and  whenever  pos- 
sible, the  number  of  hours  work  per  day.  The  name  of  every 
applicant  who  is  referred  to  the  employer  is  entered  on  the 
back  of  the  latter's  order,  and  the  result  in  each  case  is  posted 
in  the  same  way  as  on  the  employee's  card. 

In  order  to  keep  tab  on  applicants,  each  person  referred  to 
a  position  is  given  an  "Introduction  Card"  to  the  employer,  and 
the  latter  is  requested  to  sign  the  card  and  return  it  to  the 
office  if  the  applicant  is  hired.  When  no  word  is  received  from 
the  employer  either  by  card  or  telephone,  a  return  postcard  is 


124  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

sent  to  him  giving  a  list  of  those  referred  to  him  for  work 
and  asking  him  to  check  the  names  of  those  whom  he  hired. 
In  this  way  all  positions  filled  are  verified. 

From  the  "Applications  for  Employment"  and  "Employer's 
Order"  cards,  a  daily  report  of  business  is  made  by  each  office 
to  the  central  office  of  the  Industrial  Commission.  The  reports 
show  the  demand  for  help  and  the  supply  of  labor  classified  by 
industries  and  occupations;  also,  whether  the  occupations  are 
skilled,  semi-skilled,  or  unskilled,  and  whether  the  positions  are 
temporary  or  permanent. 

From  these  reports  the  labor  market  bulletins  are  compiled 
and  distributed  among  the  offices  and  to  the  newspapers  of  the 
state,  and  the  information  is  made  use  of  in  connecting  unem- 
ployed wage-earners  in  one  part  of  the  state  with  demand  for 
labor  in  another  district. 

Care  is  taken  to  give  applicants  as  full  information  as  possible 
about  the  positions  to  which  they  are  referred.  Discrimination 
is  made  only  on  reliability  and  fitness,  and  such  discrimination 
is  always  openly  made  and  the  reasons  frankly  given  to  the 
persons  discriminated  against.  Here  the  records  of  the  office 
are  of  the  greatest  value  in  offering  proof  of  unreliability  or 
unfitness,  and  in  the  case  of  employers,  of  misrepresentation  or 
unfairness  in  treatment  of  former  applicants.  As  employers  find 
an  office  careful  in  selecting  applicants  they  place  more  and 
more  value  on  its  introduction  cards.  Sometimes  they  refuse 
to  hire  anyone  without  such  a  card,  which  is  a  recognition  that 
the  staff  of  the  employment  office  is  developing  experts.  Work- 
men soon  learn  the  value  of  the  introduction  card,  and  when 
such  a  card  is  consistently  refused  to  the  unfit  and  unreliable, 
these  are  soon  separated  from  the  able  and  willing  workers. 

There  is,  however,  no  rigid  rule  of  unfitness,  and  the  office 
force  does  not  pass  judgment  on  applicants  from  the  one-sided 
standpoint  of  the  employer.  A  man  may  be  unfit  for  a  steady 
position,  but  he  may  be  the  best  fitted  for  a  short  job  of  a  day 
or  a  week.  An  applicant  may  refuse  employment  if  wages  or 
other  conditions  do  not  suit  him,  as  many  times  as  he  pleases, 
provided  he  does  not  agree  to  accept  the  position  and  then  fail 
to  keep  his  promise,  thus  keeping  another  man  from  the  work. 
Just  as  the  employer  may  hire  whom  he  pleases  or  for  as  short 
a  period  as  he  pleases,  so  the  worker  may  accept  what  position 
he  pleases,  for  as  short  a  period  as  he  pleases,  provided  in 


UNEMPLOYMENT  125 

both  cases  the  parties  make  their  intention  known  to  the  office 
force  and  thus  do  injury  to  no  one. 

Once  the  principles  and  methods  here  outlined  were  estab- 
lished, it  was  an  easy  matter  to  increase  the  business  and  draw 
away  trade  from  the  private  labor  agencies.  The  latter  are 
seldom  careful  in  the  selection  of  applicants,  and  when  employ- 
ers learned  of  the  methods  employed  by  the  state  offices  they 
preferred  to  patronize  them.  Wage-earners,  too,  began  to  come 
in  greater  numbers  as  they  saw  the  calls  for  help  at  the  free 
offices  increasing.  They  soon  learned  that  at  a  factory  'gate  they 
have  but  one  chance  to  get  work,  while  at  the  employment  offices 
there  may  be  many.  And  when  they  saw  the  free  offices  active 
and  energetic  in  gathering  and  distributing  information  about 
jobs,  they  refused  to  pay  labor  agents  for  this  information. 
Even  employers  with  whom  these  agents  were  dividing  their 
fees  were  compelled  to  come  to  the  free  offices,  for  there  the 
labor  that  they  needed  was  to  be  found. 

When  demand  for  labor  came  from  a  distant  part  of  the 
state  or  from  other  states,  the  cost  of  transportation  presented  a 
difficulty.  In  Great  Britain  the  labor  exchanges  lend  money  to 
applicants  who  wish  to  go  to  work  in  distant  places.  This  is 
hardly  necessary  in  this  country  because  employers  are  usually 
willing  to  advance  the  fare,  and  sometimes  to  pay  it,  if  they  have 
confidence  in  the  ability  of  the  employment  office  to  pick  the 
proper  men.  As  security  for  the  fare  the  men's  baggage  is 
checked  ahead  to  the  employer.  Men  are  sent  out  of  town  from 
the  Milwaukee  free  employment  office  under  arrangement  of  this 
kind  almost  every  day. 

The  prime  test  of  the  successful  management  of  an  employ- 
ment office  comes  in  times  of  industrial  disputes.  Experience 
has  shown  that  to  take  sides  with  either  party  to  the  dispute  is 
fatal.  Following  the  British  practice,  the  Wisconsin  employ- 
ment offices  adopted  the  policy  of  listing  demands  for  help  from 
employers  whose  workmen  are  on  strike,  but  carefully  informing 
each  applicant  that  there  is  a  strike  at  the  establishment.  Then 
if  the  applicant  wishes  to  be  referred  to  the  employer  he  knows 
the  conditions  and  goes  on  his  own  responsibility.  Employers 
and  union  men  have  expressed  their  satisfaction  with  this 
policy  during  several  strikes  that  have  occurred. 

Important  as  is  the  work  of  public  employment  offices  in 
solving  these  practical  administrative  problems  to  which  con- 


126  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

sideration  has  been  given,  such  work  by  no  means  covers  the 
entire  field  of  service  open  to  them.  By  adopting  such  policies 
as  have  been  described  and  carrying  them  into  execution  with 
vigor  and  efficiency,  a  successful  and  highly  important  organiza- 
tion for  distributing  labor  can  be  built  up  and  utilized.  But,  in 
addition  to  this,  public  employment  offices  have  an  important 
public  function  to  perform  in  studying  the  causes  of  Unemploy- 
ment and  providing  means  by  which  unfortunate  conditions  may 
be  remedied.  How  much  they  can  accomplish  towards  this  end 
and  what  policies  must  be  adopted  to  make  them  effective 
agencies  for  reducing  the  number  of  the  unemployed  will  be 
discussed  in  a  future  article. 


Catholic  World.   92:605-11.   February,  1911 

Looking  for  a  Job.    William  M.  Leiserson 

Have  you  ever  looked  for  a  job? 

If  you  are  one  of  those  fortunate  people  who  possess  a 
particular  talent  or  skill  which  is  in  demand,  you  may  not  have 
had  much  trouble  in  finding  work;  but  if  you  are  just  an  ordi- 
nary workingman — as  most  of  us  are — you  know  what  a  dis- 
couraging and  disheartening  experience  it  is. 

When  I  was  a  little  fellow  and  left  school  to  earn  my  own 
support,  I  wanted  a  place  in  a  business  where  I  could  "work 
up."  I  thought  a  railroad  or  a  steamship  system  offered  the 
best  career.  Therefore  I  wrote  to  nearly  all  the  railroad  and 
steamship  offices  in  New  York.  My  disappointment  was  great 
when,  after  weeks  of  waiting,  I  had  received  but  one  answer — 
and  that  informed  me  that  there  was  no  vacancy. 

I  turned  my  attention  in  other  directions.  I  made  the  round 
of  newspaper  offices  and  answered  "ads."  I  hurried  to  those 
places  which  wanted  the  applicants  to  call.  Always  I  found 
a  long  line  ahead  of  me ;  and  I  was  surprised  at  the  number 
of  "grown-ups"  who  appeared  in  answer  to  advertisements  for 
boys  at  $3  or  $3.50  per  week.  No  matter  how  early  I  came,  there 
always  seemed  to  be  some  people  ahead  of  me.  Usually  the 
position  was  filled  before  my  turn  came,  by  some  one  who  had 
had  experience.  My  teachers'  recommendations  were  good,  but 
I  was  without  experience,  so  months  passed  and  still  I  was 
without  work.  When  I  finally  did  get  a  position  it  was  through 


UNEMPLOYMENT  127 

the  influence  of  a  friend  who  took  me  into  a  business  for 
which  I  had  little  inclination. 

Thousands  of  boys  in  America  start  out  blindly  as  I  did, 
in  pursuit  of  a  job.  Where  is  the  employer,  the  industry,  to 
use  their  willing  services?  They  do  not  know.  I  did  not  know. 

Several  years  later  I  had  occasion  to  look  for  work  in 
Chicago.  I  wrote  letters.  I  called  in  answer  to  advertisements 
in  the  newspapers.  I  found  that  many  of  the  people  who 
advertised  were  not  employers,  but  employment  agents,  and  they 
had  "just  filled  the  position"  before  I  came.  I  tried  tramping 
the  streets  in  the  business  districts  looking  for  signs  "help 
wanted." 

How  many  people  are  going  through  this  same  dishearten- 
ing experience  every  day  in  our  large  cities  of  America?  How 
many  are  drifting  into  casual  labor,  living  by  odd  jobs,  with 
all  the  unsteady  and  demoralizing  habits  an  irregular  working- 
day  brings?  How  many  are  losing  hope,  becoming  vagrants, 
drunkards,  tramps?  Unemployables,  we  call  them  when  we  find 
they  won't  or  can't  work.  But  were  they  always  unemployable? 
There  are  many  who  would  make  the  most  useful,  the  most 
faithful  workers,  if  they  only  knew  how  to  look  for  a  job, 
or  where  to  look  for  it.  And  here  we  see  the  tragedy  of  the 
man  who  has  worked  in  one  place  for  years.  It  is  a  cruel  fact 
that  the  more  faithful  a  man  has  been  to  one  employer,  the  less 
likely  he  is  to  know  how  to  find  another  job  once  he  is  displaced. 
So,  he  more  quickly  loses  hope  than  a  young  man,  and  more 
rapidly  becomes  demoralized  because  he  does  not  know  how 
to  look  for  work. 

And  yet,  while  wage-earners  are  suffering  distress  from  lack 
of  work  or  insufficient  work,  employers  complain  of  a  lack  of 
labor.  This  condition  is  inevitable  in  America  as  long  as  we 
have  no  well  organized,  efficient  exchange  or  common  meeting 
place  for  the  buyers  and  sellers  of  labor.  We  have  organized 
wheat  exchanges,  cotton  exchanges,  produce  exchanges,  and 
exchanges  for  most  other  commodities.  But  where  is  the 
labor  exchange?  Why  should  labor  hunt  from  door  to  door  to 
find  its  buyer? 

Some  people  say  it  might  undermine  the  self-reliance  and 
take  away  the  initiative  of  the  workingman  if  the  city  or  state 
helped  him  find  a  job  or  helped  employers  to  find  workmen. 
They  would,  therefore,  let  chance  bring  together  employers 


128  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

needing  help  and  wage-earners  needing  employment.  So  we 
continue  to  have  our  army  of  unemployed,  our  tramps,  our 
vagrants,  and  our  beggars. 

German  Labor  Exchanges:  A   Government  Enterprise  for  the 

People 

In  Germany  they  are  not  afraid  of  having  the  government  do 
things  for  the  people.  In  fact,  they  are  quite  used  to  it.  And 
there  you  will  not  find  the  great  army  of  unemployables,  "won't 
works"  and  "can't  works"  that  are  so  familiar  in  our  own 
country  and  in  others  which  fear  the  effect  of  government 
enterprise  on  the  individual.  For,  over  there,  men,  women, 
boys,  know  they  can  find  all  the  opportunities  for  work  by 
going  to  the  labor  exchange. 

As  a  contrast  to  the  experience  of  an  American  boy,  let  us 
follow  a  German  boy  leaving  school  for  a  job.  He  receives 
from  his  teacher  a  blank  application  for  a  position.  It  has 
been  sent  over  to  the  school  by  the  Stadtische  Arbeitsnachweis 
(Municipal  Labor  Exchange).  He  fills  out  the  application  in 
the  presence  of  his  teacher,  and  on  it  is  noted  his  preference 
in  the  way  of  a  career,  his  standing  in  school,  his  aptitudes  as 
viewed  by  his  teachers,  together  with  much  other  information. 
This  application  is  transmitted  to  the  exchange.  The  person  in 
charge  of  the  department  for  juveniles  places  it  on  file.  The  boy 
is  told  to  come  to  the  exchange  from  time  to  time,  and  a 
separate  waiting  room  is  provided  where  all  the  boys  may  sit 
and  read.  When  an  employer  needs  a  boy  he  telephones  to  the 
labor  exchange.  Sometimes  he  writes.  He  tells  just  what  he 
wants  the  boy  for,  the  kind  of  work,  the  hours,  the  wages  he 
will  pay  and  what  the  opportunities  for  advancement  are.  The 
person  in  charge  of  the  boys'  department  looks  over  the  applica- 
tion blanks,  picks  out  those  most  likely  for  the  position,  calls 
those  applicants  from  the  waiting  room  (or  sends  them  a  card 
to  call  at  his  office)  and  selects  the  boy  who  seems  to  have  the 
greatest  aptitude  for  that  particular  work,  and  this  one  is  sent 
to  the  employer.  Thus  employers  know  that  only  those  who  are 
inclined  and  fitted  to  their  work  will  be  sent  to  them,  and  the 
boy  has  some  chance  to  choose  his  career. 

When  a  German  wage-earner  has  lost  his  work  he  is  not  at 
a  loss  where  to  turn.  Practically  every  city  now  has  its  Arbeits- 
nachweis. There  are  about  200  such  exchanges  either  directly 


UNEMPLOYMENT  129 

operated  by  the  municipalities  or  supported  by  their  funds.  The 
man  who  needs  employment  goes  to  the  exchange  and  registers 
on  a  blank  immediately  handed  to  him.  He  states  his  name,  age, 
residence,  trade,  and  place  of  previous  employment.  He  is  given 
a  card  which  entitles  him  to  the  use  of  the  waiting  room.  In 
a  few  cities  he  has  to  pay  a  small  fee  for  registration,  but  usually 
the  services  of  the  exchanges  are  free  to  all.  In  fact,  the  labor 
exchanges  owned  by  municipalities  are  all  free.  But  there  are 
a  number  operated  by  philanthropic  associations  which  receive 
subsidies  from  the  city  governments,  and  these  sometimes  charge 
a  small  fee,  usually  about  5  cents.  After  he  has  registered,  the 
applicant  goes  to  the  waiting  room.  The  registration  card  tells 
him  to  which  waiting  room — whether  to  that  for  unskilled 
laborers  or  to  one  of  the  various  departments  for  skilled  trades. 
There  he  will  find  men  of  his  own  class  and  calling,  smoking, 
reading  newspapers,  or  engaged  in  quiet  conversation  over  their 
steins  of  beer.  If  he  is  in  Berlin,  and  if  he  is  hungry  while 
waiting,  he  may  get  a  lunch  at  cost  price,  and  if  his  clothes  or 
shoes  need  mending  there  is  a  tailor  and  a  shoemaker  who  will 
make  him  look  presentable  to  an  employer  for  a  very  small  fee; 
and  there  are  in  Berlin  also  shower  baths  in  the  building,  of 
which  he  may  take  advantage.  The  women  and  the  children 
have  separate  departments,  with  separate  waiting  rooms.  The 
women  do  their  sewing  and  they  appear  like  a  contented  lot  of 
housewives  as  they  sit  waiting  to  be  called  for  work. 

The  waiting  room  looks  like  a  stock  exchange.  Blackboards 
with  lists  jof  positions  vacant  line  the  walls,  and  notices  of 
various  kinds  are  tacked  on  bulletin  boards  in  different  parts 
of  the  room.  From  time  to  time  a  clerk  with  many  papers  in 
his  hand  steps  into  the  room  and  the  men  gather  around  him. 
He  calls  out  the  orders  for  help.  Those  who  wish  to  apply  for 
the  jobs  call  out  the  numbers  of  their  registration  cards  and  go 
into  the  office  to  be  interviewed. 

To  be  more  specific,  let  us  say  an  unemployed  German  has 
the  experience  as  a  teamster  which  is  required  in  one  of  the 
positions  proclaimed  by  the  clerk.  He  enters  the  office.  There 
he  may  find  the  employer  ready  to  hire  him  if  he  is  satisfactory ; 
or  else  one  of  the  office  force  will  talk  to  him,  inquire  about  his 
experience;  and  if  the  clerk  deems  him  satisfactory,  the  man 
will  give  up  his  registration  card  and  receive  instead  a  card  of 
introduction  to  the  employer.  Should  he  be  hired,  he  asks  the 


130  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

employer  to  sign  the  card  and  he  puts  a  stamp  on  it  and  drops 
it  into  a  mail  box.  It  is  already  addressed  to  the  exchange 
and  tells  that  the  applicant  has  secured  the  position.  Should  he 
not  get  the  place,  he  takes  the  introduction  card  back  to  the 
clerk  and  receives  again  his  registration  card. 

Our  German  workman  has  a  feeling  for  his  fellow  men.  He 
would  not  like  to  take  another  man's  place  when  that  man  has 
gone  on  a  strike  to  better  his  condition.  He  wants  to  be  in- 
formed when  there  is  a  strike  in  any  establishment  to  which  he 
may  be  sent.  Employers,  on  the  other  hand,  want  the  exchange 
to  send  them  men  during  the  times  of  strike  as  well  as  at  other 
times.  How  shall  the  exchanges  keep  neutral  in  time  of  conflict  ? 
This  troubled  the  cities  at  first.  But  they  found  a  way  out. 
Every  exchange  has  a  managing  committee  composed  of  equal 
representatives  of  wage-earners  and  employers  with  a  chairman 
who  is  neither  an  employer  nor  a  workman.  This  committee 
looks  out  for  the  interests  of  both  sides.  When  there  is  a  strike 
it  sees  that  the  applicants  for  work  are  informed  of  the  fact ; 
and  when  some  want  to  take  the  work  in  spite  of  the  strike  the 
committee  arranges  for  these  men  to  be  sent  to  the  employers. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  few  apply  for  work  in  those 
places  where  there  are  strikes. 

When  the  labor  exchanges  were  first  established  the  work- 
ingmen  were  opposed  to  them,  while  employers  were  indifferent. 
The  unions  feared  the  use  of  them  as  strike-breaking  agencies. 
However,  a  few  labor  leaders  recognized  the  need  of  affording 
a  common  meeting  place  for  employers  seeking  help  and  work- 
men seeking  employment,  and  defended  the  exchanges  and 
cooperated  with  them.  In  1898  they  succeeded  in  winning  the 
support  of  the  German  Trade  Union  Congress.  Since  then  labor 
has  been  definitely  favorable  to  the  public  employment  offices. 

The  employers  also  have  learned  to  favor  them.  They 
thought  at  first  that  none  but  unskilled  and  incompetent  work- 
ers could  be  had  at  the  city  labor  bureaus.  It  took  much  adver- 
tising and  frequent  visits  to  get  them  to  send  all  their  orders 
to  the  exchange.  But  they  have  been  won  over.  Experience 
has  taught  them  the  advantage  of  an  organized  labor  market  to 
which  they  can  telephone  their  orders  whenever  they  need  help. 

The  only  opposition  now  comes  from  two  great  industries, 
the  metal  trades  and  mining.  But  the  employers  in  these  trades 
favor  the  principle  of  the  labor  exchange.  They  only  want 


UNEMPLOYMENT  131 

to  retain  control  of  the  labor  market  in  their  own  hands  and  to 
use  it  as  a  weapon  against  the  unions.  The  metal  trades  asso- 
ciations of  employers  and  the  mine  owners  have  organized  labor 
exchanges  from  which  all  employers  in  the  association  are  com- 
pelled to  hire  their  help.  These  exchanges  do  a  very  big  busi- 
ness. In  Berlin  alone  the  labor  exchange  of  the  Metal  Trades 
Association  finds  places  for  about  16,000  men  annually. 

In  his  city  labor  exchange  the  German  workman  finds  all 
the  opportunities  for  work  that  are  available  not  only  in  his 
own  town  but  throughout  the  empire.  In  the  waiting  rooms  he 
sees  posted  "Lists  of  Vacancies"  which  are  issued  by  the  Asso- 
ciations of  Labor  Exchanges  in  the  different  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. There  are  eleven  such  associations  corresponding  to  certain 
geographical  divisions,  as  for  example,  "The  Association  of 
Bavarian  Labor  Exchanges,"  the  "Central  German  Labor  Ex- 
changes Association,"  "North  Elbe  Labor  Exchanges  Asso- 
ciation," and  so  on.  At  regular  intervals  the  offices  in  each  of 
these  divisions  send  to  the  headquarters  of  the  association  a  list 
of  those  positions  which  they  have  not  been  able  to  fill.  In  turn, 
a  list  is  made  at  headquarters  of  the  vacancies  in  all  the  cities 
and  distributed  to  the  exchanges  throughout  the  country.  In 
this  way  it  is  possible  for  men  out  of  work  in  Prussia  to  know 
whether  it  would  be  worth  while  to  go  to  Wurtemberg  or  any 
other  state. 

The  exchanges  themselves  sometimes  arrange  the  transfer 
of  the  men  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another,  making 
sure  beforehand,  however,  that  no  one  is  sent  to  a  distant  place 
unless  a  position  is  open  for  him.  A  few  of  the  German  states 
allow  men  thus  sent  to  ride  on  the  government  railroads  at 
half  fare;  and  all  the  states  contribute  to  the  support  of  the 
associations  of  exchanges  within  their  boundaries. 

Covering  the  entire  country  is  the  Association  of  German 
Labor  Exchanges  which  receives  a  subsidy  from  the  imperial 
government.  This  organization  helps  to  start  new  exchanges 
and  improve  old  ones.  Also  it  holds  annual  conventions  for  the 
purpose  of  discussing  ideas  that  will  tend  to  promote  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  exchanges.  And  it  publishes  a  monthly  paper,  Der 
Arbeit  s  Markt  (The  Labor  Market)  which  contains  news  of 
the  work  of  the  bureaus  in  all  the  cities. 

The  first  of  the  city  labor  bureaus  was  established  by  Dres- 
den in  1887.  Since  then  they  have  spread  and  developed  rapidly. 


132  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

The  authorities  throughout  the  country  are  anxious  to  further 
their  work.  Recently  the  Reichstag  passed  a  bill  prohibiting  the 
establishment  of  private  employment  offices  except  in  such 
employments  as  are  not  dealt  with  by  the  public  labor  exchanges. 
This  is  the  first  step  toward  abolishing  entirely  all  private 
employment  offices. 

In  1909  the  municipal  labor  exchanges  of  Germany  secured 
about  950,000  positions  .for  unemployed  work  people.  Most  of 
these,  it  is  true,  would  have  found  work  for  themselves,  without 
the  aid  of  the  labor  exchanges,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  thou- 
sands would  have  been  in  distress  from  want  of  work  if  it  had 
not  been  for  these  exchanges.  Also  it  is  true  that  the  exchanges 
find  work  for  all  much  quicker  than  they  could  possibly  do  so 
themselves,  thus  saving  the  wage-earners  much  time  between 
jobs. 

The  cost  of  this  work  in  a  large  city  is  well  illustrated  by 
the  accounts  of  the  Berlin  exchange.  It  secures  about  100,000 
positions  annually  at  a  cost  of  about  100,000  marks.  That  is,  to 
find  a  place  for  a  workingman  costs  one  mark  or  about  23  cents. 

A  very  important  part  of  the  work  that  the  exchanges  do 
is  to  furnish  information  as  to  the  state  of  the  labor  market. 
In  Germany  the  records  of  the  exchanges  are  very  carefully 
and  accurately  kept  and  the  cities  use  them  in  dealing  with  the 
problem  of  Unemployment.  When  it  appears  that  there  is  an 
over-supply  of  labor,  municipal  work,  such  as  building  schools, 
extending  streets,  repairing  dams,  etc.,  is  given  to  the  unem- 
ployed. Men  are  hired  through  the  labor  exchange;  and  as 
soon  as  the  labor  market  is  relieved  and  there  is  plenty  of  work 
in  private  employment  the  cities  suspend  as  much  of  their  work 
as  possible.  There  is  a  definite  policy  so  to  arrange  the  muni- 
cipal and  state  work  as  to  have  it  done  during  dull  times  when 
private  employers  are  laying  off  their  workmen. 

What  led  the  German  cities  to  establish  free  employment 
offices?  It  was  found  to  be  cheaper  and  in  other  ways  more 
desirable  to  find  work  for  an  able-bodied  man  than  to  give  him 
charitable  support.  The  municipalities  have  to  support  all  those 
who  are  in  distress  from  want  of  employment.  Labor  exchanges 
find  work  for  many  who  might  otherwise  become  charges,  and 
also  give  the  authorities  a  means  of  determining  whether  a  man 
is  really  looking  for  work  or  is  merely  feigning. 

Great  Britain  has  since  February,  1910,  established  about  150 


UNEMPLOYMENT  133 

labor  exchanges  which  find  work  for  some  1,500  persons  daily. 
Following  the  lead  of  Germany  also,  every  continental  country, 
as  well  as  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  has  established  labor 
exchanges. 

Some  of  our  states  have  passed  laws  providing  for  free 
employment  offices,  but  usually  the  appropriations  for  their  sup- 
port have  been  inadequate  and  appointments  of  the  office  force 
have  been  dictated  by  politicians.  The  result  is  that,  with  few 
exceptions,  their  work  is  insignificant. 

Surely  it  is  time  for  us  in  America  to  see  the  necessity  for 
organizing  the  labor  market  efficiently. 

La  Follette's.     6: 5, 14, 15.    June  6,  1914 
The  Jobless  Man  and  the  Manless  Job.    John  D.  Black 

"Labor :  The  Milwaukee  Labor ,  Exchange  reports  increasing 
briskness  in  the  labor  market.  Contractors  in  Madison  and 
Racine  are  offering  structural  iron-workers  50.  cents  an  hour. 
Three  shipments  of  64  men  were  made  to  beet  sugar  growers 
in  southern  Wisconsin.  Both  common  and  skilled  workmen  are 
in  great  demand  in  many  small  cities  all  over  the  state.  The 
National  Labor  Exchange  again  reports  a  congestion  in  the 
Pacific  states,  in  Detroit  and  Buffalo,  and  a  prevailing  scarcity 
of  laborers  in  the  Middle  West." 

This  report  was  not  clipped  from  the  market  page  of  a  city 
newspaper.  But  why  shouldn't  it  have  been? 

Each  morning  the  daily  papers  publish  the  transactions  of 
the  stock  exchange,  the  wheat-pits,  the  cattle  markets  and  put- 
ter markets.  You  can  find  on  the  market  page  the  exchange 
price  of  any  kind  of  produce  from  a  pound  of  "prime  live  geese" 
feathers  or  a  hamper  of  string  beans  to  a  barrel  of  flour.  The 
alert  farmer  goes  to  this  page  to  find  out  what  he  ought  to  ask 
the  buyer  for  his  calves;  the  enlightened  housewife  what  she 
ought  to  pay  for  potatoes. 

Labor,  however,  is  still  peddled  about  the  streets.  It  goes 
from  door  to  door,  on  weary  feet,  often  in  despair  and  bitter- 
ness, humbly  offering  itself  to  perhaps  already  exasperated  buy- 
ers. It  lines  up  each  morning  at  factory  gates,  or  before  news- 
paper offices  fighting  for  the  first  chance  at  the  "want  ad"  page. 
There  are  almost  a  thousand  private  employment  offices  in 


134  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

New  York  City;  but  85  per  cent,  of  the  employers  never  use 
them.  Sixty  per  cent,  of  the  employers  reporting  to  the  New 
York  Commission  on  Unemployment  in  1911  stated  that  they 
could  always  get  all  the  help  they  wanted  from  the  people  ask- 
ing for  jobs  at  their  plants.  Another  3  per  cent,  selected  all 
they  needed  from  those  responding  to  ads. 

Compare  this  primitive  system  for  marketing  labor  with, 
for  instance,  the  marketing  of  produce.  The  Bureau  of  Statis- 
tics of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  maintains 
the  most  highly  developed  crop  reporting  organization  in  the 
world.  Fifteen  or  twenty  traveling  agents,  a  state  agent  in 
each  state,  three  thousand  county  correspondents,  and  thirty 
thousand  township  and  individual  correspondents  engage  in  re- 
porting to  the  bureau  at  Washington  the  acreage  and  condition 
of  the  crops.  Fifty  statisticians  collaborate  these  reports,  work 
by  telegraph  and  telephone  so  that  they  take  a  part  in  the  fixing 
of  prices  and  directing  the  flow  of  produce  all  over  the  world. 

It  was  the  interests  of  property  that  thrust  upon  the  federal 
government  this  business  of  reporting  the  crops.  It  is  of  value 
to  the  producer  and  especially  to  the  broker  to  know  the 
wheat  and  cotton  crop  prospects  for  the  year.  These  same 
interests  have  burdened  the  government  with  its  weather  re- 
ports, consular  reports,  geological  survey  reports  and  many 
others.  The  interests  of  property,  however,  have  had  little  to 
gain  in  the  past  from  informing  labor  as  to  the  condition  and 
location  of  its  market.  The  burden  of  Unemployment  is  all  upon 
the  wage-earner.  Capital  desires  a  large  supply  of  labor.  The 
longer  a  man  has  to  look  for  a  job,  and  the  more  men  he  finds 
looking  for  the  same  job,  the  cheaper  he  will  hire  out.  And 
so  labor  peddles  itself  from  factory  gate  to  factory  gate  and 
sells  itself  for  a  dollar  when  it  cannot  get  two,  for  the  factory 
can  do  much  better  without  one  laborer  than  the  laborer  can  do 
without  the  factory. 

But  the  public  also  has  an  interest  in  the  matter.  How  large 
that  interest  is,  let  these  figures  from  the  Bureau  of  Labor's  latest 
bulletin  on  Unemployment  testify. 

Of  twenty-nine  million  wage-earners  employed  in  1900  nearly 
six  and  one-half  million  were  idle  an  average  of  one-third  of 
the  year.  This  is  equivalent  to  more  than  two  million  men  idle 
all  of  the  year.  Every  year  since  1900  probably  two  million  years 
of  productive  labor  have  been  lost — enough  to  build  seventy 


UNEMPLOYMENT  135 

dreadnaughts,  thirty  to  cruise  along  the  Atlantic  Coast,  thirty  for 
the  Pacific  Coast,  and  ten  more  to  dog  the  entrances  to  the  Great 
Canal;  enough  to  bring  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  Chicago  through  a 
thirty- foot  Lakes-to-the-Gulf  deep  waterway ;  or  enough  to  grow 
thirty  thousand  trainloads  of  wheat  and  corn  each  forty  cars 
long. 

Nearly  six  and  a  half  million  laborers  looking  for  work,  or 
loafing  around  waiting  for  work  to  begin,  during  one  to  twelve 
months  of  the  year — and  Congress  and  our  state  legislatures 
driven  to  restricting  the  hours  of  labor  for  women  and  preventing 
the  working  of  children  in  factories  and  stores,  employers  even 
urging  that  our  contract  labor  laws  be  repealed  so  that  they  can 
get  all  the  help  they  need,  mine  operators  clamoring  for  more 
men  for  their  mines,  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  grain  going 
to  waste  because  the  farmers  can  not  get  help  to  harvest  it. 
Two  million  years  of  productive  labor,  the  equivalent  of  thirty 
thousand  large  trainloads  of  corn  and  wheat,  let  slip  through 
our  hands — and  millions  of  our  people  in  actual  want  and 
distress.  This  is  the  extent  of  the  public  interest  in  the  matter. 
This  is  the  tremendous  maladjustment  that  is  written  in  the 
books  of  the  social  reformers  as  the  problem  of  Unemployment. 
The  public  interest  dictates  that  labor  shall  find  its  best  market 
and  find  it  quick. 

Furthermore,  this  bringing  together  of  labor  and  its  market 
is  by  all  of  the  tests  of  the  political  philosophers  an  out-and- 
out  public  enterprise,  a  governmental  function.  Almost  any  large 
dealer  in  farm  produce  could  afford  to  obtain  for  himself  the 
information  that  he  needs  about  crop  prospects.  Of  course 
many  of  them  do.  But  the  solitary  brickmaker  in  Fostoria, 
Ohio,  will  never  be  able  to  finance  an  organization  that  will 
discover  for  him  that  brickmaking  is  flourishing  and  brickmakers 
are  in  great  demand  in  Kokomo,  Indiana.  Neither  will  private 
employment  offices,  no  matter  how  honestly  conducted,  and  though 
they  stand  on  every  corner  in  our  cities,  effectually  direct  the 
flow  of  labor  to  the  short-handed  industries  or  to  particular 
plants  needing  workers — because  the  information  about  work  or 
the  applications  for  a  certain  kind  of  help  are  likely  to  be  at 
one  office  while  the  particular  workers  wanted  are  at  another. 
The  information  about  labor  conditions  and  labor  opportunities 
needs  to  be  collected  over  as  wide  a  field  as  possible  and  given 
the  widest  possible  distribution. 


136  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

In  Germany  this  is  accomplished  through  a  complete  system 
of  municipal  labor  exchanges  all  banded  together  in  the  Gen- 
eral Association  of  German  Labor  Exchanges.  Some  of  the 
exchanges  are  also  banded  together  by  states.  These  exchanges 
keep  each  other  informed  as  to  labor  conditions  and  call  upon  each 
other  for  laborers  to  fill  vacancies  occurring  in  each  other's  terri- 
tory. 

In  1909  the  German  exchanges  filled  1,500,000  places. 

Great  Britain's  National  Labor  Exchange  with  its  central 
Board  of  Trade  in  London  and  four  hundred  branches  in  Eng- 
land, Ireland,  Scotland  and  Wales,  in  the  year  ending  November 
30,  1912,  filled  700,0001  places,  although  the  first  exchange  was 
established  only  in  February,  1910. 

These  figures  indicate  that  the  labor  exchange  idea  is  vindi- 
cating itself  in  Europe.  What  is  the  United  States  doing  with 
labor  exchanges?  Three  states  have  municipal  free  employment 
offices,  six  have  state  offices  located  in  the  capital  cities,  and 
thirteen  other  states  have  altogether  fifty-five  offices  operating 
in  their  largest  cities.  Four  states  have  abandoned  the  work 
altogether.  Two  of  the  state  offices  fill  less  than  a  hundred  places 
a  year,  and  several  others  only  a  few  thousand  each.  In  1910, 
the  last  year  for  which  complete  reports  are  published,  all  the 
offices  combined  filled  only  350,000,  places,  and  63  per  cent,  of 
these  were  filled  in  four  states,  Massachusetts,  Illinois,  Washing- 
ton and  Ohio.  Except  in  two  or  three  states,  public  employment 
offices  must  be  declared  to  have  failed  in  the  United  States ; 
they  have  fallen  far  short  of  what  was  expected  of  them;  they 
have  not  attained  the  success  of  the  German  labor  exchanges. 

National  Municipal  Review.     3:366-70.     April,  1914 
Is  Unemployment  a  Municipal  Problem?     Frances  A.  Kellor 

At  least  nine  American  cities  have  answered  this  question  in 
the  affirmative  by  establishing  municipal  employment  agencies. 
Nineteen  states  have  established  state  agencies,  but  in  every 
successful  one,  the  state  law  empowers  the  city  to  establish  and 
operate  such  agencies. 

The  rise  of  the  city  as  a  self-governing  unit,  the  growth  of 
the  home  rule  idea,  the  establishment  of  public  welfare  depart- 
ments in  place  of  the  antiquated  "charities"  still  maintained  by 


UNEMPLOYMENT  137 

states,  the  fact  that  the  city  is  so  largely  the  source  of  pro- 
gressive activities  in  government  and  civic  organizations,  these 
and  many  other  facts  bring  to  mind  certain  broad  questions 
which  it  is  pertinent  to  raise  as  municipal  issues. 

There  are  two  broad  classifications  of  unemployed — the  em- 
ployable and  the  unemployable.  At  the  present  time  these  are 
greatly  confused  because  we  insist  upon  treating  the  former  as  a 
relief  matter,  which  can  never  be  solved  by  relief  measures, 
and  the  latter  as  an  industrial  problem  which  lowers  the  whole 
standard  of  business  efficiency.  The  first  need  of  American 
government  is,  therefore,  some  agency  for  classification  of  these 
groups,  a  task  now  handled  very  adequately  by  volunteer 
organizations. 

I  am  here  primarily  concerned  with  the  normal  amount  of 
Unemployment  of  employable  people,  due  to  seasonal  occupa- 
tions, casual  labor,  changing  from  one  occupation  to  another, 
entrance  of  fresh  workers  into  industry  and  the  distribution  of 
immigrants  to  industries.  Unquestionably  the  centers  of  this 
exchange  of  labor  are  the  great  cities.  These  cities  are  of  two 
kinds — those  which  attract  numbers  of  workers  because  of  large 
industries,  and  in  which  trade  schools  and  special  schools  flour- 
ish, as  Milwaukee,  Detroit,  Syracuse,  Newark,  etc.  The  second 
include  what  may  be  termed  reserve  cities  where  the  unem- 
ployed concentrate,  awaiting  distribution  to  new  lines  of  employ- 
ment— as  New  York,  Chicago,  Kansas  City  and  Seattle.  The 
question  of  whether  cities  should  bear  the  burden  of  the  second 
type  of  Unemployment  is  entirely  pertinent. 

We  cannot  be  said  to  have  any  governmental  system — indeed, 
any  governmental  intelligence  in  dealing  with  the  matter  of 
Unemployment.  Of  the  nineteen  states  which  have  established 
state  labor  exchanges,  only  about  four  are  even  comparatively 
successful.  This  is  due  to  several  causes,  inadequate  appropri- 
ations, failure  to  regulate  private  competitive  agencies  at  the 
time  of  establishing  free  agencies,  failure  to  make  the  state 
agency  the  clearing  house  for  all  employment  exchanges,  intro- 
duction of  politics,  objections  of  trade  organizations,  fear  of 
their  use  for  strike-breaking  agencies,  establishment  of  central 
offices  of  administration  remotely  from  labor  centers,  and  failure 
to  establish  any  co-ordination  or  proper  and  prompt  exchange 
of  information  as  between  existing  agencies.  State  labor  ex- 
cHanges  except  where  they  are  properly  co-ordinated  into  a 


i38  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

system,  as  in  Wisconsin,  stand  today  as  a  negligible  factor  in 
the  labor  market. 

Unemployment  is  not  a  municipal  problem.  It  is  essentially 
an  industrial  problem  to  be  solved  by  industrial  methods.  But 
the  fact  that  industries  locate  in  cities  and  cities  are  the  reserve 
centers  of  labor  and  distributing  points  places  the  city  in  a 
curious  position.  New  York  City  is  the  distributing  point  for 
unskilled  labor  for  the  entire  country  east  of  the  Mississippi, 
Chicago  for  the  middle  west,  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis  for 
the  northwest.  Richmond  is  the  distributing  point  for  negroes 
coming  north,  Memphis  for  negroes  going  to  central  and  north- 
western points ;  and  New  Orleans  for  the  southwest,  while  San 
Francisco  and  Seattle  distribute  from  the  western  coast.  New 
York  City  is  the  main  center  for  theatrical  agencies,  practically 
making  contracts  for  the  whole  country.  Four-fifths  of  the 
unskilled  labor  handled  in  New  York  City  agencies  is  sent  out 
of  the  city. 

The  success  of  any  municipal  agency  must  depend  upon  its 
efficiency  and  ability  to  control  the  labor  market.  This  will 
depend  to  a  considerable  extent  upon  the  reduction  of  the  number 
of  competing  agencies,  the  protection  afforded  the  unemployed 
and  the  ultimate  elimination  of  the  padroni  among  immigrant 
workmen.  Here  enters  the  question.  "Shall  these  agencies  be 
regulated  by  municipal,  state  or  federal  laws?"  If  by  municipal 
laws,  the  restrictions  are,  without  doubt,  hampering.  Where 
such  large  numbers  of  unemployed  are  sent  out  of  the  city  the 
exploitation,  the  misrepresentation,  the  fraud  are  consummated 
beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city,  the  witnesses  are  distant 
from  the  place  where  the  agent  must  be  prosecuted,  city  funds 
may  not  be  used  for  city  officers  to  travel  beyond  city  limits, 
and  there  is  no  authority  to  investigate  nor  power  to  prosecute 
by  a  city  officer  beyond  these  lines. 

We,  therefore,  have  the  questions:  "Shall  the  state  establish 
agencies  in  cities,  retaining  control  of  their  administration  and 
establishing  communication  between  them,  and  licensing  and 
regulating  all  agencies  within  the  state  or  shall  this  be  a  muni- 
cipal or  federal  function?"  In  states  like  Illinois,  Massachusetts, 
New  York,  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  the  question  of  dis- 
tributing the  unemployed  becomes  immediately  interstate  because 
there  the  cities  are  immigrant  ports  and  reserve  centers  for 
tabor.  The  interest  in  the  subject  and  the  great  danger  of  dupli- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  139 

eating  machinery  and  of  further  decentralization  and  disorgani- 
zation of  the  labor  market,  which  is  now  a  disgrace  to  the 
country,  make  it  necessary  that  the  matter  be  given  careful 
thought.  In  Cleveland,  the  city  established  a  municipal  agency 
when  the  state  had  already  provided  a  state  agency  and  similar 
complications  might  have  arisen  in  Kansas  City.  Chicago  has  a 
state  agency  and  an  Unemployment  commission. 

First  it  is  essential  to  determine  the  type  of  agency  to  be 
established.  The  prevailing  form  is  where  the  government 
assumes  responsibility  for  sending  men  who  will  fit  the  job.  I 
believe  that  the  government  agency  should  be  a  meeting  place 
for  employers  and  employees  and  that  it  should  be  a  center  for 
the  fullest  clearance  of  information,  but  that  the  terms  of  ttte 
contract  and  responsibility,  therefore,  should  rest  entirely 
between  the  employer  and  employee.  We  need  the  elimination  of 
the  middleman,  not  his  extension  in  the  guise  of  a  government 
official.  Second,  every  private  agency  should  use  the  govern- 
ment agency  as  a  clearing  house — by  law  if  necessary.  Some 
of  them  are  so  crooked  in  their  dealings  that  they  would  not 
stand  such  cooperation,  but  they  have  no  place  in  a  well- 
organized  labor  market.  Third,  advisory  committees  of  citizens, 
including  employers,  employees  and  reputable  agents,  should 
serve  in  connection  with  such  clearing  houses,  broadening  its 
vision,  improving  its  methods  and  keeping  it  out  of  politics. 
Fourth,  it  should  be  a  center  of  information  for  gathering  statis- 
tics, making  studies  and  furnishing  publications  which  would 
give  this  country  literature  on  this  subject  which  it  does  not 
now  possess. 

I  believe  we  shall  eventually  adopt  a  combined  municipal- 
federal  system,  with  a  considerable  elimination  of  the  state  as  a 
factor.  This  is  due  partly  to  the  exigencies  of  the  case.  Munic- 
ipalities are  being  taken  out  of  politics,  the  non-partisan  move- 
ment is  being  nurtured  in  our  cities  and  has  made  little  headway 
in  the  states.  The  adoption  by  cities  of  the  commission  form  of 
government,  of  city  managers,  and  of  efficiency  methods,  natur- 
ally makes  one  turn  to  them  as  the  best  solvers  of  the  problem, 
combined  with  the  fact  that  the  unemployed  center  in  them.  In 
the  five  great  cities  there  are  more  labor  exchanges  of  all  kinds 
than  in  all  of  the  other  states  combined. 

Cleveland  seems  to  be  heading  toward  an  ideal  local  solution 
by  combining  a  vocational  guidance  bureau,  an  employment 


140  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

bureau  and  a  city  immigration  bureau  in  one  division.  The 
first  guides  the  child  into  the  right  channels  when  he  is  ready 
for  work;  the  second  takes  charge  of  the  general  problem,  and 
the  third  has  the  newly  arrived  immigrant  met  on  his  arrival 
and  safeguarded  to  his  destination. 

I  do  not  believe  any  city  will  efficiently  organize  its  local 
labor  market  which  does  not  first  possess  complete  information 
for  the  city  in  the  following  respects : 

(1)  Number,  adequacy,  location,  methods,  facilities  of  (i) 
private  employment  exchanges;    (2)    free  employment  centers; 
(3)  civic,  religious  and  racial  agencies;  (4)  relief  societies;  (5) 
governmental  agencies;  (6)  trade  and  labor  agencies. 

(2)  Extent,    operation   and   effectiveness   of    regulation   of 
present  exchanges. 

(3)  Means  of  obtaining  employment  statistics  and  of  diffus- 
ing accurate  information. 

(4)  Facilities  for  special  classes,  as  children  leaving  school, 
handicapped,  and  methods  of  controlling  mendicants. 

(5)  Advertising;  extent,  kind,  effectiveness,  cost,  waste,  and 
co-ordination  with  a  system  of  distribution  of  Unemployment. 

(6)  Special  schools,  combining  training  with  positions. 

(7)  Vocational  guidance,  with  especial  reference  to  methods 
of  placing  children. 

(8)  Advertising  methods  and  organizations  which  combine 
training  with  positions. 

I  do  not  believe  a  city  whose  labor  market  is  organized  on 
the  basis  of  the  preceding  information  will  control  the  situation 
successfully  in  times  of  stress  unless  it  possesses  information 
along  the  following  lines  and  has  its  mind  up  and  can  put  its 
mind  into  operation,  even  long  before  Unemployment  reaches 
the  maximum  period  of  stress : 

(1)  Creation   of   municipal  work;    advisability   of   opening 
factories;  furnishing  supplies  at  cost;  operation  of  woodyards 
and  laundries;  increasing  work  in  city  institutions  and  depart- 
ments. 

(2)  Relief  resources;  capacity  for  expansion  on  administra- 
tive and  executive  sides,  as  suspension  of  regulations,  ways  of 
finding  people,  etc. 

(3)  Means   of   reaching   immediate    results    of    Unemploy- 
ment;  evictions;    school  attendance;   congestion;    reduction   of 


UNEMPLOYMENT  141 

efficiency;  demoralization  through  searching  for  work;  relation 
to  health  and  morality. 

I  do  not  believe  a  city  will  find  a  permanent  solution  of 
Unemployment  and  will  so  prevent  its  seasonal  recurrence  until 
it  has  taken  up  the  following  matters  and  made  them  the  subject 
of  investigation,  hearings,  conferences  and  meetings  for  the 
purpose  of  regularizing  employment: 

(1)  Study  of  seasonal  industries  and  of  the  application  of 
efficiency  methods. 

(2)  Possible  dovetailing  of  industries,  with  the  burden  on 
the  industry. 

(3)  Study  of  casual  labor  and  means  of  prevention — prefer- 
ence tests,  scientific  planning. 

(4)  Municipal  and  state  employees — civil  service  organiza- 
tion, use  of  reserve  lists  and  decasualization  of  city  department 
labor. 

I  have  tried  to  make  it  clear  that  however  adequately  a  city 
may  classify  its  unemployed,  referring  the  unemployable  to  relief 
organizations,  however  efficiently  it  may  cover  its  local  problem, 
and  that  would  be  a  great  advance,  the  cities  are  after  all  the 
heart  of  the  nation  in  the  Unemployment  matter,  and  it  is  today 
a  national  and  not  a  city  matter,  and  action  by  cities  will  serve 
year  by  year  to  clear  the  issues  and  show  the  necessity  for 
federal  action. 

Therefore,  I  believe  that  we  stand  in  imperative  need  today 
of  a  federal  bureau  of  distribution  which  shall  combine  three 
functions:  the  establishment  of  labor  exchanges  in  the  reserve 
labor  cities,  with  full  powers  for  investigation  and  distribution, 
which  shall  also  be  an  information  center  for  the  whole  country ; 
the  establishment  of  a  transportation  fund,  to  be  safeguarded  in 
its  administration;  the  regulation  of  all  labor  exchanges  doing 
an  interstate  business ;  and  third,  the  opening  of  lands  for  set- 
tlers, to  be  distributed  by  the  government  and  the  investigation 
of  all  land  and  colonization  schemes  offered  to  colonists  ancl 
settlers. 

Without  such  a  system,  the  municipality  will  find  much  of  its 
effort  futile  and  wasteful,  for  its  problem  being  part  of  the 
nation  can  only  be  solved  by  the  nation. 


142  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy.    33:420-39.    March,  1909 

The  Problem  of  Unemployment  in  the  United  Kingdom;  with  a 
Remedy  by  Organization  and  Training.   Sidney  Webb 

What  is  called  the  problem  of  Unemployment  has  now,  in 
most  countries  of  advanced  industrial  development,  become 
acute.  It  is  not  that  the  poverty  and  distress  is  worse  than 
before.  In  the  United  Kingdom,  indeed — thanks  to  factory  acts 
and  trade  unions,  and  other  instruments  for  upholding  and 
enforcing  a  standard  of  life — it  is  demonstrable  that  the  poverty 
and  distress  is  far  less  than  in  1795  or  1817  'or  1841  or  1879, 
our  years  of  greatest  depression.  But  those  who  suffer  are,  in 
all  countries,  more  articulate  than  they  used  to  be.  They  do 
not  acquiesce  in  their  misery  and  degradation  as  inevitable. 
They  know,  as  we  know,  that  the  conditions  of  industry  from 
which  they  suffer  have  been  created  by  our  forefathers  and 
ourselves,  and  that  they  need  not  have  been  so  created.  They 
can  at  any  rate  be  altered  if  we  so  choose.  And  there  is,  among 
those  who  do  not  suffer,  the  economists  by  no  means  excluded, 
a  rapidly  growing  feeling  that  the  present  organization  is  inde- 
fensible, and  also  that  it  ought  not  to  be  defended.  There  is 
in  England,  a  growing  conviction  that  the  problem  of  Unem- 
ployment is  now  one  of  the  principal  preoccupations,  not  only 
of  the  legislature,  but  also  of  the  heads  of  the  executive 
government. 

I  will  first  state  the  problem  as  it  appears  to  me.  Any  day 
we  find,  in  every  large  city,  almost  at  all  times,  a  considerable 
number  of  men  actually  without  wage-earning  employment  for 
that  day,  or  for  many  days  in  succession.  At  particular  seasons 
of  each  year  this  number  is  greatly  augmented.  In  some  years 
it  is  greater  than  in  others.  These  men  are  occasionally  skilled 
mechanics,  or  men  who  have  held  responsible  posts  at  305. 
a  week  or  more,  but  to  the  extent  of  80  per  cent  at  least 
they  belong  either  to  the  great  army  of  general  laborers,  or 
else  to  that  slightly  specialized  section  of  it  which  calls  itself 
"painter"  or  "builders'  laborer."  They  are  predominantly  men 
in  the  prime  of  life,  mostly  between  twenty  and  fifty,  with  wife 
and  children.  They  have  practically  no  savings  beyond  the 
scanty  contents  of  a  one  or  a  two-roomed  home.  Whether  or 
not  they  ought  to  have  saved  may  be  matter  for  argument; 


UNEMPLOYMENT  143 

but  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  vast  majority  of  them  have  never 
in  their  lives  earned  as  much  as  £40  in  any  consecutive  twelve 
months — a  sum  which  would  not,  at  best,  leave  much  margin 
after  providing  the  housing,  food,  clothing,  and  other  daily 
necessaries  of  the  family  group.  There  is,  in  their  occupations, 
hardly  ever  a  trade  union  giving  unemployment  benefit  to  which 
they  could  have  belonged;  in  fact,  no  such  trade  union  has  ever 
been  able  to  collect  from  so  poverty-stricken  a  class  the  shilling 
or  eighteenpence  a  week  which  any  adequate  Unemployment 
benefit  requires.  The  fact  that  we  have  to  face  is  that  they  do 
not  have  savings  adequate  to  tide  them  over  periods  of  Unem- 
ployment. 

If  the  community  arranges  nothing  better  for  these  men 
than  the  "test  workhouse"  or  even  the  stoneyard,  the  vast 
majority  of  them  do  as  the  poor  law  administrators  wish  and 
intend  them  to  do,  namely,  struggle  on  outside — pawning  one 
bit  of  furniture  after  another,  picking  up  odd  jobs,  living  on 
the  scanty  earnings  of  the  women,  making  a  shilling  or  two  out 
of  the  children's  labor,  begging  here  and  there,  getting  help 
from  churches  and  chapels,  children's  dinner  funds,  and  so  on. 
Every  now  and  then  there  are  "demonstrations  of  the  unem- 
ployed" and  "Mansion  House  Funds."  The  total  result  is  (a) 
the  rapid  demoralization  in  physique  and  morale  of  a  large 
proportion  of  the  men;  (&)  chronic  semi-starvation  for  the 
women  and  children,  with  the  most  frightful  results  in  prevent- 
able mortality,  disease,  and  permanent  physical  impoverishment ; 
(c)  the  reduction  of  wages  to  the  barest  minimum  for  all  the 
unskilled  labor  class;  and  (d)  the  annual  recruiting  of  the 
army  of  permanent  paupers  to  such  a  degree  as  to  nullify  all 
attempts  to  reduce  its  total  by  the  wisest  curative  treatment.  I 
believe  this  to  be  one  main  reason  why  the  number  of  paupers 
does  not  decrease.  These  results,  which  are  always  going  on, 
are  alike  so  patent  and  so  invariable,  at  once  so  costly  and  so 
injurious  to  the  community  as  a  whole,  that  it  is,  in  my  opinion, 
worth  spending  almost  any  sum,  and  taking  any  amount  of 
trouble,  to  remedy  the  evil. 

The  salient  fact  that  emerges  from  the  experience  and 
studies  of  the  problem  during  the  last  twenty  years  is  the  com- 
parative unimportance,  from  a  statistical  standpoint,  of  the 
popular  figure  of  the  skilled  artisan  thrown  out  of  work  by  the 
introduction  of  new  machinery  or  other  industrial  changes,  or 


144  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

the  man  dismissed  because  of  his  gray  hairs.  The  conditions 
with  which  we  have  to  deal  are  not  spasmodic  or  exceptional, 
but  chronic.  They  concern,  not  individuals  alone,  but  a  whole 
class.  The  evil  is  not  even  measured  by  the  extent  to  which 
the  aggregate  volume  of  employment — the  total  demand  for 
wage  labor — waxes  and  wanes  from  month  to  month  or  from 
year  to  year.  Even  in  the  best  times  there  are  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  men  in  the  conditions  that  I  have  described.  The  total 
number  exposed  to  these  conditions  can  scarcely  be  estimated, 
but  it  is  plainly  many  times  larger  than  the  difference  between 
the  aggregate  totals  employed  at  the  best  of  times  and  at  the 
worst  of  times. 

The  evil  to  be  grappled  with  is,  in  fact,  not  the  loss  of 
permanent  situations  by  the  particular  men  who  are  found  to 
be  out  of  work,  but  the  vast  majority  of  them  have  never  held 
such  situations.  It  is  the  casual  nature  of  the  employment  that, 
even  at  the  best  of  times,  is  afforded  to  the  whole  class,  of 
whom  they  are  only  an  accidentally  selected  sample.  Though 
there  are  among  the  crowd  some  men  who  are  really  suffering 
from  being  thrown  out  of  regular  and  continuous  employment, 
and  who  quite  reasonably  aspire  to  get  back  again  into  durable 
situations,  these  can  at  present  neither  be  accurately  distin- 
guished nor  effectively  helped,  because  of  the  crowding  of  the 
others,  who  are  immeasurably  more  numerous.  What  is  de- 
pressing and  destroying  the  lives  of  these  others  is  not  Unem- 
ployment in  the  ordinary  sense.  The  social  problem  which  is 
presented,  for  instance,  by  the  Liverpool  dock  laborers,  is  as 
grave  on  the  days  when  they  get  work  as  it  is  on  the  days 
when  they  get  none — that  is  to  say,  we  have  to  take  into  account 
not  only  the  particular  10  per  cent  who  may  be  starving  today, 
but  also  the  other  90  per  cent  who  will  quite  certainly  be  equally 
destitute  some  other  week  in  the  year,  or  some  other  year  of 
the  trade  cycle.  No  scheme  dealing  only  with  the  sample  of  the 
whole  that  happens  today  to  be  without  work  can  ever  be  of 
any  real  use.  It  is  the  chronically  intermittent  character  of  the 
employment  of  the  whole  class  for  which  we  must  find  some 
remedy.  What  we  have  primarily  to  deal  with  is,  as  it  is  rightly 
put  by  Mr.  Beveridge,  whose  studies  on  this  question  constitute, 
in  my  judgment,  one  of  the  most  important  achievements  of 
economics  of  this  decade,  not  so  much  Unemployment  as  "under- 
employment." 


UNEMPLOYMENT  145 

It  is  the  existence  of  this  large  class  of  men  living  on  casual 
employment — getting  a  day's  work  here  and  there,  occasionally 
working  four  or  five  days  in  a  week,  and  then  perhaps  only  four 
or  five  days  in  a  month — that  both  intensifies  the  evil  of  Unem- 
ployment and  renders  nugatory  all  kinds  of  "relief  work."  It 
intensifies  the  evil,  because  as  Mr.  Beveridge  has  shown,  reliance 
by  individual  employers  on  casual  labor  creates  little  crowds  of 
surplus  labor  at  each  dock  gate,  by  each  wharf,  even  around 
each  builder's  foreman — each  crowd  waiting  wholly  or  mainly 
for  jobs  from  that  particular  source.  It  is  to  the  interest  of 
each  such  employer  to  have  waiting  for  his  jobs  any  moment  a 
crowd  large  enough  to  get  through  the  maximum  amount  of 
work  that  he  is  ever  likely  to  need  to  get  done.  Thus  there  are 
now  collected  on  the  Thames  and  the  Mersey,  at  Bristol  and  at 
Newcastle,  at  Glasgow  and  at  Hull,  not  merely  enough  casual 
laborers  to  supply  the  maximum  needs  of  the  busiest  day  of  the 
port  as  a  whole,  if  all  the  needs  were  combined,  but  enough 
to  supply  the  aggregate  total  of  the  separate  maxima  that  the 
several  employers  may,  on  many  different  days,  individually 
require.  What  is  true  of  dock  and  wharf  labor  is  true  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  of  the  slightly  specialized  manual  labor 
employed  by  the  builders  and  the  contractors  for  engineering 
works,  of  the  workers  in  practically  all  the  seasonal  trades,  of 
the  outworkers  in  the  clothing  and  furniture  trades,  and,  in  fact, 
in  all  industries  in  which  there  is  not  a  definite  regular  staff, 
filling  permanent  situations.  The  result  of  this  excess  is  that 
the  casual  employment  is  rendered  even  more  intermittent  and 
"casual"  than  it  need  be.  Moreover,  so  long  as  there  exists  this 
huge  army  of  laborers  who  never  are  "employed"  in  any  regular 
situation,  every  attempt  to  provide  for  the  comparatively  few 
skilled  mechanics  displaced  by  machinery,  etc.,  the  steady  man 
who  has  lost  a  situation  at  twenty-five  or  thirty  shillings  a  week, 
through  the  bankruptcy  of  his  employer,  and  the  other  meritori- 
ous cases  that  turn  up  occasionally  at  the  distress  committees, 
is  doomed  to  failure.  The  practically  inexhaustible  flood  of 
casual  laborers  flows  in  and  swamps  the  register,  swamps  the 
relief  work  and  swamps  everything  else  that  a  despairing  dis- 
tress committee  attempts.  And  this  series  of  stagnant  crowds 
of  casual  labor  is  apparently  getting  larger  and  more  casual  in 
its  character. 

Thus  it  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  any  useful  action  for 


146  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

"the  unemployed,"  in  the  strict  sense,  that  there  should  be  some 
organization  of  casual  employment.  After  much  consideration 
of  the  problem  and  of  the  various  suggestions  made,  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  following  plan  offers  a  prac- 
ticable remedy,  and,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  the  only  practicable 
remedy.  I  owe  this  plan  mainly  to  the  discoveries  and  stimulat- 
ing suggestions  of  Mr.  Beveridge;  but  he  has,  I  believe,  not  yet 
worked  out  his  own  ideas  to  the  extent  that  I  am  now  taking 
them.  In  any  case  he  has  no  responsibility  for  my  proposals. 

We  must  postulate,  to  begin  with,  the  great  desirability,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  community,  of  putting  an  end  to  all 
"casual"  or  intermittent  employment  of  wage  labor  if  we  could 
do  so,  because  of  its  social  effects.  No  housekeeping  can  stand 
a  demoralizing  uncertainty  as  to  whether  the  week's  income 
will  be  five  shillings  or  five  and  twenty.  I  do  not  believe  that  if 
industry  were  at  all  deliberately  organized  on  a  large  scale,  an 
abolition  of  casual  employment  would  be  impossible.  But  stop- 
ping short  of  a  legal  prohibition  of  a  method  of  hiring  labor 
which  is  demonstrably  quite  as  injurious  to  the  community  as 
was  the  truck  system,  we  may  reasonably  ask  those  employers 
who  continued  to  adopt  it,  to  submit  to  some  restrictions  calcu- 
lated to  reduce  the  social  evil  that  they  undoubtedly  cause.  I 
propose  that  it  should  be  made  legally  compulsory  on  employers, 
being  persons  carrying  on  industrial  or  commercial  operations 
for  profit,  either  to  guarantee  a  minimum  period  of  employment 
— which  might  be  put  at  a  month — subject,  of  course,  to  the 
power  of  dismissal  of  any  particular  individual  for  misconduct, 
and  even  to  the  arbitrary  replacement  of  one  man  by  another  if 
desired;  or  in  the  alternative,  in  so  far  as  they  are  unable  or 
unwilling  to  offer  employment  for  a  month,  then  to  hire  such 
labor  as  they  want,  whether  for  a  job,  a  day,  or  a  week,  exclu- 
sively through  the  public  labor  exchange. 

I  propose  the  development  of  the  existing  labor  exchanges 
in  London  and  those  of  the  distress  committees  elsewhere  into 
a  complete  national  system;  with  offices  opened  exactly  where 
most  convenient  to  employers  for  instance,  actually  inside  the 
dock  gates,  or  at  the  principal  wharves,  or  at  any  other  places 
where  sudden  demands  for  labor  occur.  Office  hours  should  be 
kept  as  required.  The  exchanges  should  be  ready,  for  instance 
to  supply  laborers  at  five  in  the  morning,  and  should  be  tele- 
phonically  interconnected,  and  organized  up  to  the  maximum 


UNEMPLOYMENT  147 

efficiency.  As  there  would  be  no  other  opportunity  of  getting 
casual  employment  at  all  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  odd 
jobs  offered  by  private  persons,  not  engaged  in  business;  and 
even  these  we  may  hope  to  diminish,  it  would  not  be  necessary 
to  make  it  legally  compulsory  on  the  laborers  to  enrol  them- 
selves at  the  labor  exchanges,  except  under  circumstances  to  be 
hereafter  described.  Nor  would  it  be  necessary  legally  to  pro- 
hibit the  existence  of  other  agencies  for  filling  situations.  As 
employers  would  be  forbidden  to  use  them  for  casual  labor, 
such  agencies  would  automatically  cease  to  compete  with  the 
public  labor  exchanges,  and  would  have,  perforce,  to  confine 
themselves  to  filling  such  situations  of  at  least  a  month's  dura- 
tion as  might  be  offered  to  them. 

This  plan,  it  will  be  seen,  reduces  to  a  minimum,  the  pro- 
posed restriction  on  the  employer,  or  the  interference  with  his 
business.  It  would  cause  him  absolutely  no  increase  of  expense. 
In  so  far  as  he  can  offer  regular  employment  of  a  month's 
duration,  he  is  not  affected  at  all.  Even  for  casual  labor,  he 
remains  as  free  as  before  to  hire  it  by  the  job  or  by  the  day 
only,  for  as  short  a  period  as  he  chooses.  He  will  have  at  his 
disposal  all  the  men  in  the  whole  town  who  are  not  already 
engaged.  He  may  have  his  own  choice  of  men,  assuming  that 
they  are  momentarily  disengaged.  He  may  ask  for  this  man  or 
that;  he  may  keep  his  own  list  of  "preference  men";  he  may 
send  for  ten  or  a  hundred  men  in  order  of  his  preference,  or 
send  merely  for  so  many  men  without  naming  them.  He  may 
even  bargain  privately  with  the  man  of  his  choice,  and  virtually 
secure  him  beforehand,  provided  that  he  lets  the  formal  hiring 
take  place  through  the  labor  exchange.  All  that  he  is  forbidden 
to  do  is,  at  any  time  or  under  any  circumstances,  to  take  on 
casual  labor  otherwise  than  through  the  labor  exchange. 

The  result  to  the  laborer  living  by  casual  employment  will 
be  that  he  will  find  effectively  open  to  him,  not  merely  the 
particular  demand  for  labor  of  this  or  that  wharf,  or  this  or 
that  foreman,  on  which  he  has  been  in  the  habit  of  waiting,  but 
the  whole  aggregate  demand  of  the  town.  We  may  assume  that 
the  policy  of  the  labor  exchange  would  be,  subject  to  any  pref- 
erences expressed  by  employers,  so  to  distribute  the  available 
men,  and  so  to  dovetail  the  engagements  offered  to  each  of 
them,  as  to  secure  to  each  man  who  was  employed  at  all  five 
or  six  days'  work  in  every  week.  In  so  far  as  this  was  achieved, 


148  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

we  should  have  done  for  casual  labor  what  has  been  done  for 
skilled  nurses  in  most  large  towns  by  the  various  nurses'  insti- 
tutes, etc.,  and  for  the  members  of  the  corps  of  commissionaries 
in  London,  namely,  combined  freedom  to  the  employer  to  hire 
only  for  a  job,  with  practical  continuity  of  work  to  the  person 
employed. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  there  exists,  in  the  United  King- 
dom, for  one  important  industry,  not  only  a  highly  organized 
national  labor  exchange,  but  also  compulsion  on  the  employers 
to  use  it.  For  nearly  half  a  century  there  has  been  maintained 
by  the  government,  in  every  port  of  the  United  Kingdom,  what 
is  called  the  Mercantile  Marine  Office.  Here  alone  may  the 
engagement  of  seamen,  firemen,  cooks,  and  other  members  of  a 
ship's  crew  take  place.  At  the  150  such  offices,  masters  and 
shipowners  go  to  meet  the  disengaged  men,  pick  out  those  they 
wish  to  engage,  and  sign  contracts  with  them  before  a  govern- 
ment officer.  The  system  works  smoothly  and  well,  and  gives 
rise  to  no  complaint.  It  is  significant  that  there  are  practically 
no  seamen  to  be  found  among  the  unemployed  in  distress.  They 
alone  enjoy  the  advantages  of  a  national  labor  exchange. 

There  will  remain,  after  the  labor  exchange  has  met  all  the 
demands  upon  it,  a  residuum  of  men,  who  are  demonstrably  not 
wanted  at  that  moment  in  that  place.  This  "surplus  labor"  will 
be  a  varying  amount  from  day  to  day.  Some  of  it  will  be 
needed  to  meet  the  periods  of  increased  demand  for  labor — 
the  "wools"  and  the  "teas"  at  the  docks,  the  pressure  on  the 
railway  companies  at  the  holiday  seasons,  the  extra  postmen 
at  Christmas,  the  "glut  men"  at  the  custom  house,  the  curiously 
regular  irregularities  of  the  printing  and  bookbinding  trades, 
the  increased  demand  in  winter  by  the  gas  companies  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  theatrical  industry  on  the  other,  the  spring 
rush  on  painters  and  builders'  laborers,  on  dressmakers,  and 
trouser-finishers,  and  so  on.  But  we  shall  be  surprised  to  find 
how  easy  it  will  prove  after  a  year  or  two's  experience  to  fore- 
cast these  requirements  for  the  town  as  a  whole;  and,  very 
possibly,  how  comparatively  small  is  the  variation  in  the  aggre- 
gate volume  of  employment  for  unskilled  and  casual  labor  of 
one  day  or  of  one  month,  or  of  one  season  of  •  the  year  com- 
pared with  another.  What  remains  to  be  discovered  is  how  far 
the  different  sporadic  demands  can  be  satisfied  interchangeably 
by  the  undifferentiated  labor  that  is  available.  Complete  inter- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  149 

changeability  of  labor  and  complete  dovetailing  of  situations 
may,  of  course,  not  be  possible.  But  probably  it  would  become 
every  year  more  practicable;  and  it  will  obviously  be  part  of 
the  educational  training,  to  be  now  described,  to  promote  a 
more  complete  interchangeability. 

The  labor  exchange  would,  of  course,  not  confine  itself  to 
filling  situations  in  the  ranks  of  casual  employment,  or  from 
among  those  whom  it  had  to  support.  It  would  receive,  and  in 
every  way  encourage,  voluntary  applications  from  employers  for 
labor  of  better  grades,  for  durable  situations;  which  it  would 
do  its  best  to  fill  from  the  best  of  those  whom  it  had  on  its 
register. 

When  the  whole  of  the  anticipated  requirements  of  each 
town  are  provided  for,  it  should  be  the  duty  of  the  various  labor 
exchanges  to  communicate  with  one  another  as  to  the  actual  or 
anticipated  requirements  of  other  towns.  Just  as  all  the  labor 
exchanges  in  one  town  would  report,  day  by  day,  and  even, 
telephonically,  hour  by  hour,  to  a  central  office  in  that  town, 
from  which  they  would  all  be  advised  as  to  the  localities  where 
additional  men  were  required,  so  the  labor  exchanges  of  all 
the  different  towns  in  the  United  Kingdom  would  report,  at 
least  once  a  day,  to  the  Ministry  of  Labor,  stating  (a)  what 
surplus  labor  they  had,  and  (ft)  how  much  of  it  was  needed 
for  the  proximate  local  requirements;  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
(O  what  shortage  of  labor  they  had,  or  expected  to  have. 
Particular  labor  exchanges  could  then  be  put  telephonically  in 
direct  communication  with  each  other,  either  with  a  view  to 
filling  particular  situations  or  with  a  view  to  an  offer,  to  those 
laborers  who  were  disengaged,  of  the  chance  of  migration  to 
the  town  in  which  additional  labor  of  any  particular  sort  was 
required.  It  might  well  be  part  of  the  help  afforded  by  the 
state  to  make  this  mobility  possible  by  advancing  any  necessary 
railway  fares. 

Theoretically,  as  Mr.  Beveridge  quite  logically  insists,  it  is 
not  necessary  for  the  labor  exchange  to  do  anything  more  than 
organize,  for  the  common  benefit  of  employers  and  men,  just 
whatever  private  demand  for  casual  labor  happens  at  the  mo- 
ment to  exist.  But  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  politically  impossible  to 
stop  at  this  point.  The  hundreds  of  thousands  of  casual  labor- 
ers would  in  that  case  bitterly  resent  being  deprived  of  their 
present  gambling  chance  of  getting  situations  for  themselves. 

13 


150  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

They  would  still  more  resent  the  dovetailing  of  chances  which, 
whilst  securing  practical  continuity  of  work  to  some  men,  left 
others  without  any  at  all.  Public  opinion  would  support  them 
in  this  resentment.  It  is  therefore,  in  my  judgment,  an  essential 
part  of  the  plan  that  there  should  be  full  and  frank  public 
provision  for  the  residuum  for  whom  the  labor  exchange  can 
find  no  employment.  The  men  and  their  families  have  to  be 
fed  somehow.  Nothing  can  be  more  costly  to  the  state  than 
the  way  in  which  they  are  now  fed,  nothing  more  destructive 
of  character  and  health,  nothing  more  demoralizing  to  the  com- 
munity. We  are  already  driven — first,  in  the  form  of  "labor 
test"  relief  by  the  boards  of  guardians  during  the  whole  of  the 
last  seventy  years,  and  now  in  the  various  activities  of  the 
distress  committees — to  provide  for  these  men  and  their  families 
out  of  the  public  funds.  Instead  of  doing  this  unscientifically 
and  wastefully,  because  on  no  well-thought-out  and  deliberate 
plan,  it  would  be  far  better  for  the  community,  and  less 
demoralizing  for  the  men,  and,  possibly,  in  the  long  run,  even 
less  costly  to  the  state,  to  put  the  matter  on  a  systematic  basis. 
I  propose  that  the  residuum  of  labor — the  laborers  for  whom 
no  employer  can  be  found  by  the  labor  exchanges — should  be 
given,  without  stigma  of  pauperism,  or  any  attempt  to  prevent 
them  from  applying,  full  maintenance  in  return  for  training.  It 
is  necessary  to  keep  them;  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  not 
have  their  time  on  their  hands ;  it  is  necessary  to  make  these  days 
of  waiting  less  pleasant  to  them  than  days  of  employment.  It 
follows,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  there  is  no  room  here 
for  any  sort  of  "relief  works"  or  "labor  test."  We  shall  know 
that  they  cannot  secure  private  employment.  Moreover,  the  resid- 
uum of  laborers,  whom  all  the  employers  in  the  town  have  pre- 
ferred to  leave  to  the  last,  will  inevitably  be  men  of  relatively 
inferior  physique,  relatively  bad  physical  condition,  relatively 
unsatisfactory  habits,  and  relative  lack  of  skill,  whom  it  would 
be  absurdly  extravagant  and  ridiculous  to  engage  to  do  public 
work  at  wages.  To  create  artificial  work  at  wages  for  them 
would,  in  fact,  be  to  defeat  the  whole  object  of  the  proposed 
organization.  These  particular  men — the  residuum,  be  it  remem- 
bered, of  a  far  stricter  selective  process  than  any  one  distress 
committee  can  now  apply — must  be  regarded  as  temporarily  "out 
of  condition"  for  useful  work.  They  would,  in  fact,  almost 
invariably  be  found  eminently  suitable  subjects  for  physical,  men- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  151 

tal  and  technological  "remedial  drill"  with  a  view  to  bringing 
them  up  to  a  higher  standard  of  productive  efficiency.  Any  im- 
provement which  it  may  be  found  possible  to  effect  in  them  must 
not  be  expected  in  itself  to  prevent  their  future  "Unemployment" 
or  "underemployment" — that  will  not  be  the  object  of  the  train- 
ing, and  it  will  only  mislead  the  public  to  advocate  it  on  that 
ground.  Whilst  the  training  will  be  useful  in  itself  to  the  com- 
munity, as  well  as  to  the  men  themselves,  its  real  object  in  the 
scheme  is  (a)  to  occupy  the  men's  time,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
demoralization  of  idleness;  (&)  to  supply  the  necessary  deterrent 
element,  so  that  the  men  may  find  their  periods  of  Unemployment 
less  "pleasurable"  than  their  periods  of  employment  at  wages. 
This  deterrent  element  would  be  found  in  taking  from  them,  for 
the  whole  day,  not  only  all  indulgence  in  alcohol,  but  also  all 
leisure  for  idle  gossip.  They  would  sacrifice  rather  more  of  their 
liberty  whilst  they  were  in  training  than  if  they  were  in  employ- 
ment at  wages,  and  they  would  get  no  beer. 

I  propose,  therefore,  that  there  should  be  attached  to  the  labor 
exchange  organization  a  series  of  graduated  training  establish- 
ments of  different  kinds,  partly  day  and  partly  residential,  to 
which  all  those  men  should  be  relegated  for  whom  no  employ- 
ment could  be  found,  other  than  those  who  had  insured  them- 
selves, as  hereinafter  described,  against  this  contingency,  or  who 
possessed  other  means  of  subsistence  for  themselves  and  their 
families.  If  they  refused  to  submit  to  this  training  they  would 
get  no  relief  of  any  kind;  they  would  be  liable  to  be  proceeded 
against  as  rogues  and  vagabonds ;  and  they  could  be  committed  to 
the  penal  settlement  or  to  prison.  In  return  for  putting  in  their 
whole  time  at  the  training  establishments,  and  submitting  to  the 
necessary  regimen  and  discipline,  the  men  would  be  fully  fed  and 
adequately  clothed  when  necessary,  but  would  be  paid  no  wages  or 
pocket  money,  whilst  adequate  home  aliment  would  be  granted 
for  the  support  of  their  families  under  suitable  conditions. 

I  visualize  these  training  establishments  for  the  unemployed 
as  graduated  and  specialized  in  various  ways,  as  experience  may 
dictate.  There  will  be  (a)  central  labor  depots,  in  close  propin- 
quity with  the  principal  labor  exchange,  for  what  I  may  call  the 
first-class  reserve  of  the  industrial  army;  (b)  day  training  depots 
of  various  kinds,  for  the  second-class  reserve;  (c)  farm  colonies, 
of  at  least  three  different  grades,  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  real 
surplus,  which  may  be  found  not  to  be  wanted  in  the  towns  at  all ; 


152  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

(d)  religion  and  philanthropy,  and  (e}  a  penal  settlement,  to 
which  the  recalcitrant  and  the  incorrigibly  idle  would  find  them- 
selves committed  by  the  magistrates. 

Let  us  consider  these  somewhat  more  in  detail.  It  might  well 
be  the  best  of  the  surplus  laborers  selected  for  physique,  regular- 
ity of  conduct,  and  intelligence,  who  would  each  day  be  kept 
within  call,  ready  to  meet  not  only  the  already  notified  demands 
of  employers,  but  also  unexpected  sudden  requirements.  For  this 
section,  who  may  be  regarded  as  the  first-class  reserve,  we  may 
imagine  the  utilization  of  the  existing  trade  schools  within  the 
town,  the  provision,  near  at  hand,  of  lecture  rooms,  gymnasia,  and 
reading  rooms ;  and  the  organization  of  suitably  alternated  tech- 
nical classes,  physical  exercises,  plain  meals  without  alcohol,  lec- 
tures, and  drill,  so  as  to  absorb  the  whole  day.  This  constant 
attendance  and  continuous  mental  occupation  is  essential.  From 
these  centers  would  be  fetched,  hour  by  hour,  such  labor  as  was 
demanded  from  any  part  of  the  town.  At  present  it  stands  about 
at  street  corners,  loafs  in  and  out  of  the  beerhouses,  and,  in  an 
atmosphere  of  congenial  gossip,  goes  rapidly  to  seed. 

But  there  would  be  another  contingent  of  men  for  whose  ser- 
vices there  would  be  no  probable  demand  that  day,  or  even  that 
week  or  that  month — men  who  would  be  demonstrably  inferior  in 
physique  or  qualifications  to  the  selected  first  class,  and  who 
needed  more  improving  in  body  or  mind.  Some  of  these  might 
be  sent  to  specific  technical  schools  for  particular  forms  of  train- 
ing, expected  to  extend  over  a  few  weeks,  or  even  a  few  months, 
but  liable  always  to  be  interrupted  if  there  came  an  abnormal 
demand  for  labor,  when  the  labor  exchange  would  send  for  them. 
Others  would  go  to  the  general  training  depots,  where  they  would 
have  to  attend  from  6  a.  m.  to  9  p.  m. — the  object  being  to  absorb 
their  leisure  and  organize  their  whole  waking  life — for  a  properly 
varied  curriculum  of  gymnastics  and  drill,  trade  classes  and  stim- 
ulating lectures,  swimming  and  organized  games,  interspersed 
with  good,  plain  meals,  and  no  alcohol — the  whole  dictated  by  a 
consideration  of  what  is  calculated  most  to  increase  their  physical 
and  mental  efficiency.  This  absorption  in  varied  mental  and 
physical  occupations  of  the  entire  day  is  essential.  Their  wives 
and  families,  to  whom  they  would  return  at  night,  would  receive 
home  aliment  sufficient  for  their  subsistence. 

Possibly  at  some  future  time,  we  should  find  that  there  was  no 
further  surplus  labor  in  the  towns  than  what  could  advantageously 


UNEMPLOYMENT  153 

be  relegated  for  the  slack  season  to  these  day  training  depots.  But 
for  the  present  at  any  rate,  as  the  result  of  any  success  in  "dove- 
tailing" various  forms  of  intermittent  employment,  we  should 
undoubtedly  have  a  clear  surplus  for  which  the  town  had  no  use. 
Moreover,  there  would  always  be  particular  men  to  be  prepared 
for  country  work,  or  for  emigration.  Thus,  though  the  farm 
colony  on  a  large  scale  may  be  only  a  temporary  need,  there  will 
probably  always  be  room  for  a  certain  amount  of  training  accom- 
modation of  this  kind.  But  this,  too,  should  be  organized  and 
regarded  strictly  as  educational  training  and  discipline,  not  as 
providing  employment.  The  choice  of  work  should  be  dictated 
by  its  educational  effect  on  the  men,  not  by  its  profitableness. 
Maintenance  should  be  given,  together  with  home  aliment  for  the 
family,  but  no  wages.  There  might  be  grades  of  farm  colonies; 
some  very  rough  and  physically  laborious,  others  specializing  in 
fruit  culture  and  the  finer  sorts  of  market  gardening.  Men  could 
be  moved  upwards  or  downwards,  as  their  conduct  and  character 
required,  and  there  might  have  to  be  provision  for  "incurables" — 
men  found  really  incapable  of  satisfying  any  employer,  but 
neither  physically  ill  nor  morally  vicious — for  whom,  as  for  the 
sane  epileptics,  who  constitute  an  exactly  analogous  class,  we  can 
do  no  better  than  keep  them  in  segregation  in  the  country  at  such 
light  and  easy  jobs  as  they  can  perform. 

In  this  connection  there  would  be  great  opportunity  for  making 
use  of  the  fervor  and  zeal  of  philanthropy  and  religion.  The 
greatest  results  in  the  way  of  the  reclamation  and  training  of  indi- 
viduals have  always  been  achieved  by  religious  organizations.  It 
may  well  be  wise  for  the  state  to  make  a  greatly  increased  use, 
with  proper  inspection  of  farm  colonies,  and  similar  settlements 
and  homes  conducted  by  religious  and  philanthropic  committees, 
for  such  of  the  residuum  as  may  be  willing  to  be  sent  to  them  in 
preference  to  the  government  establishment.  It  may  well  be  for 
all  that  important  side  of  training  that  is  implied  in  the  strength- 
ening of  moral  character,  the  building  up  of  the  will,  the  power 
to  resist  temptation,  and  the  formation  of  regular  habits,  the  most 
effective  instruments  are  a  degree  of  love  and  of  religious  faith 
that  a  government  establishment  with  a  civil  service  staff  may 
not  always  be  able  to  secure.  The  Ministry  of  Labor  would 
therefore  be  well  advised  to  let  the  denominations  and  the  phil- 
anthropists have  all  the  scope  that  they  can  take,  and  only  to 
establish  such  additional  government  farm  colonies  as  are  found 


154  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

needful  to  supplement  private  effort.  This  private  effort  could 
be  subsidized  by  payments  for  each  case,  as  has  long  been  done 
for  a  whole  generation  in  the  reformatory  schools,  and  as  is  now 
being  done  in  inebriate  houses. 

At  the  base  there  must  evidently  be  a  penal  settlement,  with 
whatever  drastic  disciplinary  treatment  as  may  be  found  most 
curative.  But  I  suggest  that  the  object  must  always  be  to  raise 
and  stimulate,  never  to  depress.  The  principle  adopted  ought  to 
be  that  of  the  indeterminate  sentence,  subject  to  a  fixed  maxi- 
mum. Every  person  committed  should  be  committed  for  as  long 
a  period  as  may  prove  necessary.  He  should  stay  there  until  he 
had  given  to  the  authorities  of  the  settlement  reasonable  assur- 
ance of  being  reformed  in  body  and  mind.  He  should  always 
know  that  he  could  emerge  just  as  soon  as  he  was  able  to  give 
that  reasonable  assurance,  when  he  would  rise  to  the  farm  col- 
ony, and  through  the  various  grades  of  farm  colony  to  the  day 
training  depot,  and  so  back  to  the  central  labor  depot  and  the 
chance  of  a  regular  situation — subject,  of  course,  to  being  de- 
graded and  again  committed  every  time  he  lapsed.  There  would 
be  great  advantages  in  transferring  all  prisoners  to  the  penal 
settlement  for  the  latter  portions  of  their  sentences,  instead  of 
merely  discharging  them  on  ticket-of -leave  or  otherwise,  in  order 
that  they,  too,  may  have,  first  of  all,  a  secure  provision  of  sub- 
sistence in  return  for  labor,  some  industrial  training,  and  then  a 
real  opportunity  of  rising  to  the  ranks  of  honest  employment. 
An  analogous  working  arrangement  between  prison  and  labor 
exchange  is  apparently  acting  well  in  Illinois. 

It  might  be  undesirable,  even  if  it  were  politically  possible, 
to  propose  a  national  organization  of  labor  exchanges,  with  main- 
tenance, to  the  unemployed  in  return  only  for  further  training, 
except  side  by  side  with  an  offer  of  encouragement  to  the  work- 
men to  make  themselves,  by  provident  insurance,  independent  of 
the  whole  machinery.  Such  insurance  against  Unemployment  is 
at  present  provided  by  some  of  the  trade  unions,  and  scarcely  at 
all  by  any  other  institutions.  At  present,  however,  only  about  a 
third  of  the  total  of  two  million  trade  unionists,  and  none  of  the 
ten  or  twelve  million  non-unionists,  are  insured  against  Unem- 
ployment, "out-of-work  benefit"  being  provided  only  by  the  trade 
unions  in  the  more  skilled  and  better  paid  trades,  which  alone  are 
able  to  afford  the  necessary  premium.  For  instance,  neither  the 
bricklayers  nor  the  stonemasons,  though  very  skilled  workmen, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  155 

have  ever  been  able  to  get  beyond  the  very  objectionable  "tramp- 
ing pay." 

It  would  be  a  good  investment  for  the  community  to  aid  and 
develop  this  trade-union  insurance  against  Unemployment  by  a 
grant-in-aid,  calculated,  perhaps,  at  one-half  what  the  trade  union 
paid.  It  would  be  very  desirable  to  make  it  a  condition  of  the 
state-subsidized  "out-of-work  pay"  that  (a)  all  tramping  pay 
should  be  abolished,  and  (fc)  the  recipient  should  be  urged  and 
enabled  to  spend  some  of  his  idle  hours  at  a  technical  institute, 
where  he  could  be  given  instruction  in  his  own  trade.  The  un- 
employed compositors,  for  instance,  who  daily  "sign  the  book" 
at  the  trade  union  office  in  London  and  draw  two  shillings,  now 
usually  loaf  about  Ludgate  Circus  on  the  chance  of  a  job.  They 
are  generally  men  of  not  the  highest  skill — mostly,  in  fact,  men 
of  very  inadequate  training  and  range  of  work.  They  had  far 
better  spend  some  hours  a  day  at  the  neighboring  St.  Bride's 
Institute,  in  technical  classes,  at  work  on  those  parts  of  their 
craft  in  which  they  are  not  proficient.  With  such  state  subsidy 
the  provision  of  "out-of-work  benefit"  would  be  made  possible  in 
many  of  the  poorer  trade  unions.  A  greatly  increased  number 
of  workmen  would  be  induced  to  insure  against  Unemployment. 
A  corresponding  relief  would  be  afforded  to  the  public  organiza- 
tion that  had  to  provide  for  the  unemployed.  The  last  excuse 
for  vagrancy  would  be  removed,  and  it  would  be  put  within  the 
capacity  of  every  provident  artisan  but  still  only  of  the  men 
above  the  grade  of  casual  laborer,  to  provide  against  the  contin- 
gency of  Unemployment  in  the  method  most  congenial  to  himself. 

But  there  is  no  need  to  attempt  to  force  this  subsidy  on  the 
workmen's  organizations.  The  thrifty  workman  may,  in  fact, 
be  left  to  do  as  he  likes.  So  long  as  he  fulfilled  all  his  social 
obligations  whilst  out  of  work,  whether  by  means  of  insurance 
or  otherwise,  the  state  need  not  interfere  with  him.  If  he  did 
not  beg,  did  not  commit  a  nuisance  and  did  not  let  his  wife  and 
children  suffer  from  inanition,  he  might,  if  he  chose,  abstain 
from  enrolling  himself  at  the  labor  exchange;  but  if  he  were 
found  begging,  or  tramping  without  means  of  subsistence,  if  his 
home  became  unsanitary  or  his  children  were  reported  fo  be 
unfed,  the  first  question  would  be,  why  are  you  not  at  the  labor 
exchange?  Commission  of  any  of  these  offences,  by  a  man  who 
was  not  taking  this  obvious  means  of  fulfilling  his  social  obliga- 
tions, would,  of  course,  be  a  serious  crime.  If  a  man  made  no 


156  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

provision  for  the  future  when  the  state  had  made  this  possible 
for  him,  he  could  hardly  complain  of  the  way  in  which  the  state 
dealt  with  him  for  his  good  when  he  became  destitute.  Govern- 
ment subsidies  of  trade-union  insurance  against  Unemployment 
will  not  be  rashly  declared  by  any  educated  person  to  be  impos- 
sible, because  the  system  actually  exists  in  Belgium,  in  Holland, 
in  Denmark,  in  Norway,  in  France,  and  in  Germany,  with  the 
assent  of  both  employers  and  trade  unions,  and  is  rapidly  spread- 
ing all  over  the  continent. 

A  further  encouragement  might  well  be  afforded  to  the  provi- 
dent workman.  As  a  large  proportion  of  the  situations  in  the 
skilled  trades  are  not  of  the  nature  of  casual  employment,  but 
do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  last  for  a  month  or  more  (or  could 
easily  be  arranged  to  do  so)  it  would  be  in  no  way  necessary  for 
these  to  be  filled  through  the  labor  exchange.  It  might  even  be 
desirable  to  make  arrangements  also  for  the  shorter  engagements 
and  "casual"  jobs  of  the  skilled  mechanics  in  such  trades  to  be 
independently  organized.  It  might  be  well  to  provide  that  where 
a  trade  union  giving  out-of-work  benefit,  desired,  perhaps  in 
conjunction  with  an  organization  of  employers,  to  manage  its 
own  register  of  men  unemployed  and  situations  vacant,  it  would 
be  permitted  to  do  so  in  close  connection  with  the  public  labor 
exchange,  which  would  transfer  to  it  at  once  any  applications 
from  employers  in  that  trade,  and  not  fill  any  such  situation  un- 
less and  until  the  special  office  for  the  trade  failed  to  do  so.  In 
this  way  there  would  be  secured,  to  those  workers  in  any  trade 
who  had  been  provident  enough  to  insure  themselves  against 
Unemployment,  a  practical  preference  for  all  the  employment  that 
might  be  offered  in  that  trade.  This  conjunction  of  the  trade- 
union  register  of  unemployed  workmen  with  the  public  labor 
exchange  cannot  be  summarily  dismissed  as  impracticable  or  as 
ruinous  to  the  employer,  by  anyone  who  knows  what  he  is  talk- 
ing about,  for  it  is  in  full  force  in  some  parts  of  Germany,  and 
apparently  working  well. 

Moreover,  it  would  be  open  to  the  employers  in  any  particular 
trade  to  undertake,  if  they  preferred  the  organization  of  their 
own  casual  employment.  The  Liverpool  shipowners,  who  now 
refuse  to  take  any  trouble  to  avoid  creating  a  quite  unnecessary 
congestion  of  surplus  labor  at  the  Liverpool  docks,  with  the 
gravest  social  consequences,  might  elect  rather  than  submit  to  a 
public  labor  exchange,  to  establish  such  an  organization  for 


UNEMPLOYMENT  157 

themselves.  Provided  that  they  offered  continuous  employment 
of  not  less  than  a  month  to  their  men — as  a  very  little  organiza- 
tion and  a  small  insurance  premium  would  enable  them  to  do — 
they  would  be  free  to  make  their  own  arrangements.  They 
might,  for  instance,  establish  a  mutual  society,  which  itself  en- 
gaged the  laborers  by  the  month,  and  supplied  them  to  the  ship- 
owners as  required.  They  might  even  combine  both  advantages, 
the  mutual  society  engaging  and  supplying  the  regular  corps  of 
men,  of  the  number  up  to  which  constant  employment  could  be 
guaranteed  and  also  drawing  on  the  labor  exchange  in  any  tem- 
porary emergency  as  any  individual  shipowner  could  also  do. 

In  any  comprehensive  scheme  for  dealing  with  the  unem- 
ployed there  are,  I  believe,  two  conditions  that  must  be  satisfied 
before  it  will  be  adopted.  One  is  that  the  humane  public,  no 
less  than  the  unfortunate  laborers  themselves,  must  have  assur- 
ance that  whilst  the  new  and  comprehensive  scheme  is  getting 
under  way,  there  will  be  no  cessation  or  interruption  of  the  pro- 
vision already  made  for  the  relief  of  the  unemployed  workmen 
and  their  families.  The  other  is  that  the  scheme  shall  afford 
at  its  other  end,  some  prospect  of  eventually  providing,  in  some 
permanent  way,  for  the  ultimate  residuum  of  the  unemployed. 
Both  these  conditions  must  be  met. 

The  second  condition,  that  the  scheme  shall  afford  a  prospect 
of  eventually  providing  in  some  permanent  way  for  the  ultimate 
residuum  of  the  unemployed,  must  now  claim  attention.  At 
present  we  can  do  nothing  effective  for  them,  because  (a)  we  are 
not  convinced  that  there  is  any  such  residuum ;  or,  at  any  rate, 
(b)  we  have  no  idea  how  large  it  is;  and  (c)  we  cannot  dis- 
tinguish it  amid  the  crowd  of  merely  "underemployed"  casual 
laborers.  But  once  a  national  labor  exchange  had  filled  all  the 
demands  of  employers  from  one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the 
other,  and  had  estimated  the  probable  total  of  their  demands  in 
the  approaching  busy  season  or  the  opening  busy  years  of  the 
trade  cycle  the  number  of  the  residual  unemployed  would  be 
demonstrated  and  their  personal  identity  established.  The  ten 
or  twenty  thousand  men  who  might  then  be  under  training  in 
the  various  farm  colonies  would  be  an  unmistakable  object  les- 
son. The  nation  would  have  to  make  up  its  mind  what  to  do 
with  them. 

It  would,  for  instance,  be  open  to  the  government,  at  the 
instance  of  the  Minister  of  Labor,  to  decide  upon  any  scheme  of 


158  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

afforestation,  or  land  reclamation,  or  road  making,  or  for  that 
matter,  the  calling  out  of  the  militia  or  special  reserve  for  extra 
training,  the  building  of  additional  battleships  or  militia  bar- 
racks— being  socially  desirable,  but  not  commercially  profitable 
undertakings,  which  would  not  otherwise  have  been  started,  but 
which  it  might  be  worth  while  undertaking  in  order  to  increase 
the  aggregate  demand  for  wage  labor. 

The  government  might  well  resolve,  rather  than  maintain 
20,000  men  in  idleness,  to  give  out  contracts  for  such  works  as 
have  been  mentioned,  with  the  view  of  getting  that  number  of 
men  into  situations.  The  government  would  do  well  not  to 
employ  the  particular  20,000  men  who  were  on  its  hands,  and  not 
even  in  any  way  to  fetter  its  contractors  in  their  choice  of  men. 
All  that  it  need  do  to  achieve  its  object  is  to  put  its  orders  on 
the  market  or  let  its  manufacturing  departments  take  on  more 
hands,  in  the  usual  way,  so  as  to  increase  the  aggregate  volume 
of  demand  for  wage-labor.  Then,  with  all  the  safeguards  of  each 
employer  selecting  the  best  men,  the  residuum  on  the  hands  of 
the  national  labor  exchange  would  be  indirectly  drawn  upon,  and 
might  be  practically  absorbed.  On  the  other  hand,  we  might 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  20,000  men  whom  we  might  find 
on  our  hands — or  many  of  them — could  be  best  disposed  of  by 
settling  them  on  the  land  that  they  had  reclaimed,  either  as 
small  holders  or  as  cooperative  colonists,  in  order  that  they 
might  produce  their  own  subsistence. 

Or  we  might  find  that  these  20,000,  or  many  of  them,  could 
be  best  disposed  of  by  being  settled  on  the  land  in  new  countries ; 
or  merely  enabled  to  emigrate  to  Canada.  Or,  again,  we  might 
decide  that  if  there  were  20,000  men  standing  idle,  the  time  had 
come  for  a  reduction  of  the  general  hours  of  labor — say,  half  an 
hour  a  week — sufficient  to  absorb  the  surplus  labor. 

Probably  the  nation  would  use  a  combination  of  all  these 
methods  for  particular  individuals  at  particular  dates.  But  not 
until  we  have  demonstrated  the  existence  of  a  residuual  surplus 
by  a  national  labor  exchange  shall  we  be  in  a  position  to  make 
the  necessary  decision. 

Such  a  plan  for  dealing  with  Unemployment  by  the  organiza- 
tion of  casual  labor  will,  of  course,  be  dismissed  as  "Utopian." 
Experience  shows  that  this  may  mean  nothing  more  than  that 
the  plan  will  take  some  years  to  realize.  I  will  conclude  by  men- 
tioning two  instances  in  which  schemes  of  remedying  social  evils, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  159 

that  seemed  wildly  "Utopian,"  have,  even  within  our  own  time, 
come  about.  Less  than  a  century  ago  the  problem  of  dealing 
with  the  sewage  of  London  seemed  insoluble.  Half  a  million 
separate  private  cesspools  accumulated  each  its  own  putrefaction. 
To  combine  these  festering  heaps  into  a  single  main  drainage 
system  seemed,  to  the  statesmen  and  social  reformers  of  1820 
or  1830,  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility.  We  now  take  for 
granted  that  only  by  such  a  concentration  is  it  possible  to  get 
rid  of  the  festering  heaps  and  scientifically  render  innocuous  the 
ultimate  residuum.  And,  to  take  an  even  larger  problem,  less 
than  half  a  century  ago,  when  millions  of  children  in  the  land 
were  growing  up  untaught,  undisciplined  and  uncared  for,  it 
would  have  sounded  wildly  visionary  to  have  suggested  that  the 
remedy  was  national  organization.  Could  there  have  been  any- 
thing more  "Utopian"  in  1850  than  a  picture  of  what  today  we 
take  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  seven  million  children  emerging 
every  morning,  washed  and  brushed,  from  five  or  six  million 
homes  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom,  traversing  street  and  road 
and  lonely  woodland,  going  o'er  fell  and  moor,  to  present  them- 
selves at  a  given  hour  at  their  thirty  thousand  schools,  where 
each  of  the  seven  millions  finds  his  or  her  own  individual  place, 
with  books  and  blackboard  and  teacher  provided  ready  for  him — 
surely  a  triumph  of  the  "regimentation"  in  which  there  is  the 
truest  freedom?  What  has  been  done  with  the  London  cesspools 
and  the  English  children  can  be  done  if  we  like,  with  the  casual 
laborers,  and  probably  in  much  less  time. 


NEGATIVE  DISCUSSION 


Annals  of  the  American  Academy.    33:225-38.    March,  1909 

Employment  Bureau  for  the  People  of  New  York  City.1 
Edward  T.  Devine 

That  there  are  in  New  York  City  in  good  times  as  well  as  in 
periods  of  depression  a  very  considerable  number  of  employable 
persons  who  need  work  who  are  not  actually  employed,  may  be 
taken  for  granted.  Immigration,  migration  from  other  com- 
munities, irregularity  in  building  operations  and  in  other  indus- 
tries, and  the  seasonal  character  of  many  trades,  are  causes 
which  operate  in  all  communities,  but  in  New  York  City  in  a 
wholly  extraordinary  degree.  Besides  such  causes  affecting  large 
masses  of  people,  individuals,  of  whom  there  is  a  large  number 
in  the  aggregate,  lose  much,  to  them,  valuable  time  in  finding 
work  after  illness,  or  when  from  any  other  cause  they  have 
been  compelled  to  give  up  their  work.  For  our  present  purpose 
it  has  not  been  thought  necessary  to  make  any  estimate  of  the 
unemployed.  Common  observation  and  the  testimony  of  trade 

i  In  the  fall  of  1908  Mr.  Jacob  H.  Schiff  suggested  that  the  Charity 
Organization  Society  should  call  a  conference  to  consider  the  following 
proposition: 

"The  proposition  is  to  organize  in  the  City  of  New  York  an  employment 
bureau  under  a  board  of  trustees  composed  of  experienced  men,  preferen- 
tially from  the  mercantile  and  industrial  classes. 

"The  bureau  should  be  placed  under  a  manager  of  great  executive 
ability,  with  two  or  three  assistants,  the  latter  to  be  thoroughly  conversant 
with  the  classes  and  their  peculiarities  which  compose  New  York  City's 
working  population. 

"The  bureau  is  to  establish  an  organization  covering  all  sections  of  the 
United  States,  so  that  it  shall  be  in  immediate  and  constant  touch  with 
requirements  for  labor  and  employment  wherever  such  may  exist,  but  its 
benefits  are  to  accrue  primarily  to  the  unemployed  of  the  city  of  New  York. 

"The  bureau  is  to  charge  a  reasonable  fee  to  the  employer  for  the 
procuring  of  labor,  for  which  the  latter  may  reimburse  himself,  gradually, 
if  this  is  deemed  well?  from  the  wages  of  the  employee.  It  is  hoped  that 
by  this  the  bureau  will  in  time  become  self-supporting;  but  to  assure  its 
establishment  and  maintenance  for  a  number  of  years,  until  it  shall  have 
become  self-supporting,  a  working  fund  of  $100,000  ought  to  be  assured  at 
the  outset." 

The  Russell  Sage  Foundation  undertook  the  expense  of  a  preliminary 
investigation,  and  Dr.  Edward  T.  Devine  was  requested  to  prepare  the 
report  of  which  this  article  presents  a  summary.  The  full  report,  with 
numerous  appendices  and  a  bibliography,  is  printed  privately  for  the  Russell 
Sage  Foundation  by  The  Charities  Publication  Committee,  New  York. 


i62  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

unions,  charitable  societies,  and  the  daily  press  sufficiently  estab- 
lish the  fact  that  in  normal  years  the  total  number  who  lose  a 
substantial  part  of  the  working  year  is  very  considerable,  and 
that  in  every  depression,  however  local  or  temporary,  the  number 
is  sufficiently  large  to  become  a  matter  of  grave  concern. 

The  question  which  is  pertinent  and  important  is  whether  the 
unemployed  are  so  (i)  because  they  are  unemployable,  (2) 
because  there  is  no  work  to  be  had,  or  (3)  because  of  mal- 
adjustment, which  an  efficient  employment  bureau  could  at  least 
to  some  extent  overcome.  It  is  obvious  that  if  they  are  unem- 
ployed because  they  are  unemployable,  the  employment  bureau  is 
no  remedy.  The  only  adequate  remedy  for  a  lack  of  efficiency 
would  be  education  and  training.  If,  again,  they  are  unemployed 
because  of  real  and  permanent  surplus  of  supply  over  the 
demand  of  labor,  it  is  plain  that  an  employment  bureau  could 
not  remedy  the  difficulty.  The  bureau  does  not  directly  create 
opportunities  for  work,  and  its  success  will  therefore  depend  on 
the  possibility  of  finding  it.  In  so  far,  however,  as  the  lack  of 
employment  is  due  to  mal-adjustment,  that  is  to  the  inability  of 
people  who  want  work  to  get  quickly  into  contact  with  oppor- 
tunities which  exist  and  to  which  there  are  no  other  equally 
appropriate  means  of  access,  the  employment  bureau  will  be 
justified.  This  mal-adjustment  between  labor  and  opportunities 
for  labor  may  either  be  local,  i.e.  within  the  community  itself, 
or  it  may  be  as  between  communities.  That  is,  if  there  is  an 
actual  surplus  of  labor  in  New  York  City  there  may  still  be  a 
deficiency  in  other  towns  or  cities,  or  on  farms  in  New  York  or 
other  states,  and  the  employment  bureau  may  therefore  find  a 
field  for  usefulness  in  equalizing  these  conditions  as  between 
communities. 

The  time  at  our  disposal  has  not  permitted  an  original 
investigation  of  the  extent  to  which  there  is  an  unfilled  demand 
for  labor,  either  in  New  York  City  or  in  other  communities. 
I  have,  however,  addressed  a  careful  letter  of  inquiry  to  about 
thirty  persons  who  would  be  in  position  to  give  definite  informa- 
tion on  these  points,  if  it  were  to  be  had,  and  whose  opinions 
at  least  would  be  "worthy  of  special  consideration.  The  most 
striking  facts  about  the  replies  to  these  inquiries  is  the  complete 
demonstration  that  they  give  that  there  is  no  definite  information 
on  these  matters  and  that  the  views  of  those  who  have  evidently 
considered  them  most  carefully  are  apt  to  be  diametrically 


UNEMPLOYMENT  163 

opposed.  There  is,  however,  a  general  consensus  of  opinion 
among  economists  and  authorities  on  labor  problems  that  even 
in  periods  of  active  trade  there  is  by  no  means  a  complete  adjust- 
ment between  seekers  after  work  and  opportunities  for  employ- 
ment even  within  the  city. 

Practically  all  from  whom  opinions  have  been  obtained,  econ- 
omists, employers,  trade  unionists,  social  workers,  and  govern- 
ment and  state  officials  who  have  had  to  deal  with  labor 
questions,  are  firmly  convinced  that  surplus  labor  is  a  feature 
of  congested  communities  and  not  a  general  phenomenon,  that 
in  ordinary  times  an  urgent  demand  for  both  skilled  and 
unskilled  labor  may  exist,  and  does  exist,  in  many  communities 
at  the  very  moment  when  the  unemployed  are  congregating  in 
other  communities,  and  especially  that  labor  is  needed  at 
remunerative  wages  on  farms  at  the  very  time  when  the  already 
overcrowded  cities  are  increasing  in  population. 

The  conclusion  to  which  I  am  forced  to  come  from  a  pains- 
taking examination  of  all  of  the  data  on  this  subject  available 
in  print,  and  from  correspondence  and  personal  conference  with 
those  whom  I  have  thought  most  competent  to  advise  on  the 
subject,  is  that  there  is  a  need  at  all  times,  and  in  periods  of 
even  slight  depression  a  very  urgent  need,  of  an  efficient  system 
of  bringing  together  as  quickly  as  possible  those  who  are  seeking 
work  and  those  who  are  seeking  workers.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  such  an  agency  would  actually  increase  to  an  appreciable 
extent  the  effective  demand  for  workers.  In  the  words  of  Mr. 
Sidney  Webb,  "it  would  not  only  increase  the  mobility  of  labor, 
but  would  actually  increase  the  aggregate  volume  of  demand, 
to  the  extent  of  the  opportunities  for  profitable  employment  that 
the  employer  now  lets  slip  because  he  can't  get  just  what  he 
wants  when  he  wants  it." 

The  proposed  employment  bureau  would  certainly  be  one 
means,  and  as  I  shall  hereafter  show,  probably  the  best  means, 
of  meeting  this  great  and  permanent  need  by  mediating  between 
work  and  workers  in  that  large  number  of  instances  for  which 
no  other  especially  appropriate  means  of  communication  has 
been  established. 

I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  make  an  independent 
investigation  of  the  existing  commercial  agencies  for  the  reason 
that  numerous  investigations  have  been  made,  and  one  which  is 
official  and  doubtless  exceptionally  thorough,  is  in  progress  at 


164  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

this  writing  under  the  direction  of  the  New  York  State  Immi- 
gration Commission.  Without  anticipating  the  findings  of  the 
state  commission  it  is  within  bounds  to  say  that  the  private 
commercial  agencies  do  not  meet  the  need  which  has  been  de- 
scribed, that  their  standards  of  integrity  and  efficiency  are  low, 
that  their  real  service  to  employers  and  employees,  except  in  a 
few  occupations,  and  in  the  case  of  a  few  well  conducted 
agencies,  is  exceedingly  slight.  Operated  primarily  for  profit, 
they  have  a  constant  temptation  to  over-charge,  to  misrepresent, 
and  to  encourage  frequent  changes  for  the  sake  of  the  fee.  It 
is  a  striking  fact  that  the  principal  argument  for  the  establish- 
ment of  free  state  labor  bureaus  has  always  been  found  in  the 
abuses  of  the  private  commercial  agencies. 

The  three  most  important  attempts  in  New  York  City  to 
conduct  a  free  employment  bureau  under  the  auspices  of  philan- 
thropic agencies  are  the  Cooper  Union  Labor  Bureau,  conducted 
by  the  New  York  Association  for  Improving  the  Condition  of 
the  Poor,  the  Employment  Bureau  of  the  United  Hebrew  Chari- 
ties, and  the  Employment  Bureau  of  the  Society  of  St.  Vincent 
de  Paul.  All  of  these  have  been  discontinued ;  and  all  for  this 
reason,  among  others,  that  the  maintenance  of  a  general  employ- 
ment bureau  is  not  the  proper  function  of  a  charitable  society, 
and  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  success  of  the  employ- 
ment bureau  the  connection  with  a  charitable  society  is  disad- 
vantageous. If  the  underlying  ideas  and  policies  of  these 
bureaus  had  been  different,  if  they  had  had  at  their  disposal  a 
superintendent  and  staff  really  qualified  to  deal  with  the  task 
in  its  larger  social  aspects,  and  if  they  had  been  in  position  to 
invest  a  large  capital  in  creating  a  mechanism  and  establishing 
proper  trade  relations,  it  is  possible  that  they  might  have  over- 
come the  handicap  of  connection  with  a  charitable  agency,  how- 
ever serious  and  embarrassing  such  an  affiliation  may  be.  Their 
experience,  therefore,  while  instructive  and  illuminating  in  many 
respects,  cannot  be  regarded  as  conclusive. 

Still  less  importance  can  be  attached  to  such  free  agencies  as 
the  Free  Employment  Bureau  now  maintained  at  the  Barge 
Office  by  the  German  Society  and  the  Irish  Emigrant  Society. 
Excellent  service  has  been  rendered  for  many  years  by  this 
bureau  for  the  particular  class  for  whom  it  is  intended,  and 
there  need  of  course  be  no  attempt  to  displace  it.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  employment  bureaus  which  deal  with  immigrants  of 


UNEMPLOYMENT  165 

other  nationalities,  and  those  conducted  by  the  various  religious 
organizations. 

There  are  no  statistics  as  to  the  total  number  of  persons 
who  are  placed  in  employment  by  these  free  agencies.  Although 
the  aggregate  number  of  persons  affected  and  benefited  is  of 
course  considerable,  the  fact  remains  that  the  work  of  these 
bureaus  is  so  fragmentary,  so  uncoordinated  and  so  meager 
when  compared  with  the  number  of  persons  in  the  city  who 
require  such  assistance,  that  it  could  scarcely  be  seriously  main- 
tained that  they  meet  the  need. 

By  authority  of  act  of  Congress  of  February,  1907,  dealing 
with  the  general  subject  of  immigration,  there  has  been  estab- 
lished in  the  Bureau  of  Immigration  of  the  Department  of 
Commerce  and  Labor  a  special  division  for  collecting  and  dis- 
tributing information  to  aliens  and  others  interested.  Mr.  T.  V. 
Powderly,  the  former  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  is 
at  the  head  of  this  division,  and  on  the  theory  that  the  only 
information  which  is  of  interest  to  aliens  or  others  interested  is 
information  concerning  a  particular  job  suitable  to  their  own 
individual  needs,  the  government  has  established  at  17  Pearl 
Street  what  is  virtually,  though  not  in  name,  an  employment 
bureau.  In  cooperation  with  the  Post  Office  Department  and 
the  Department  of  Agriculture,  the  Division  of  Information  has 
undertaken  a  very  comprehensive  plan  for  obtaining  information 
from  farmers  and  others  concerning  their  need  for  workers,  and 
places  this  information  at  the  disposal  of  the  superintendent  of 
the  local  bureau  for  the  benefit  of  aliens  or  others  who  may 
call  at  the  office.  Having  the  franking  privilege  and  the  advan- 
tage of  cooperation  with  other  federal  bureaus,  it  would  natur- 
ally be  expected  that  such  an  employment  bureau  might  develop 
large  proportions  and  to  a  measurable  extent  supply  the  need 
for  such  service  as  we  have  been  considering. 

There  are  objections,  however,  to  the  assumption  of  this 
duty  by  any  branch  of  the  federal  government.  It  is  imprac- 
ticable, for  example,  for  the  government  to  distinguish  between 
citizens  who  would  seek  to  use  the  bureau  as  employers,  and 
yet  such  discrimination  is  necessary  if  applicants  are  not  to  be 
sent  at  unreasonably  low  wages  or  to  positions  where  the  con- 
ditions are  unsatisfactory.  Questions  arise  as  to  calls  from 
employers  on  the  occasion  of  strikes  or  lockouts.  A  voluntary 
agency  could  properly  insist  upon  full  and  accurate  knowledge 

14 


166  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

on  all  such  questions  before  undertaking  to  supply  a  demand. 
For  the  government  to  do  so  would  be  to  invite  friction  and 
antagonism  which  might  have  very  regrettable  consequences. 
No  government  official  should  ever  be  placed  in  a  position  where 
it  is  necessary  to  discriminate  between  citizens,  who,  apparently 
in  good  faith,  are  demanding  a  service  which  the  government 
has  undertaken  to  supply.  Without  such  discrimination,  how- 
ever, an  employment  bureau  operating  on  a  large  scale  over  a 
large  territory  would  inevitably  become  merely  a  factor  in  reduc- 
ing wages  and  lowering  standards  of  living.  If  a  generous 
response  to  inquiries  on  behalf  of  the  general  government  means 
that  employers  are  seeking  immigrant  labor  because  it  is  cheap 
labor,  and  if  the  government  by  advising  immigrants  to  accept 
such  offers  or  by  facilitating  their  acceptance  becomes  a  party  to 
such  lowering  of  standards,  it  may  easily  do  harm  which  would 
vastly  outweigh  the  services  given  in  finding  employment  for  a 
given  number  of  people.  This  is  a  danger  against  which  any 
employment  bureau  should  take  ample  precautions,  but  it  will  be 
easier  and  more  practicable  for  a  voluntary,  unofficial  agency  to 
take  such  measures  than  for  any  branch  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment. 

If,  however,  the  actual  work  of  acting  as  intermediary  is 
assumed  by  a  voluntary  agency  properly  equipped  for  the  pur- 
pose, it  is  quite  possible  that  cooperation  between  such  an  agency 
and  the  federal  government  might  be  mutually  advantageous. 
If  the  federal  government  would  collect  such  information  as  is 
apparently  contemplated  by  the  immigration  law,  and  would  place 
such  information  at  the  disposal  of  reputable  voluntary  agencies 
or  make  it  available  in  some  suitable  way  to  the  general  public, 
this  would  enormously  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  voluntary 
bureau. 

After  conference  with  the  secretary  of  the  Department  of 
Commerce  and  Labor  and  with  the  chief  and  assistant  chief  of 
the  Division  of  Information,  and  with  the  superintendent  of  the 
local  bureau,  as  well  as  with  the  commissioner  of  labor  and 
many  others  who  have  given  attention  to  the  subject,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  while  there  is  a  great  field  of  usefulness  for  the 
division  of  information,  it  is  not  and  cannot  wisely  become  an 
effective  intermediary  between  workers  and  employment  to  an 
extent  that  will  make  unnecessary  such  an  employment  bureau 
as  is  under  consideration. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  167 

The  State  Department  of  Agriculture  conducts  in  its  branch 
office  at  23  Park  Row,  New  York  City,  a  special  labor  bureau 
for  the  purpose  of  supplying  farmers  of  the  state  with  farm- 
hands and  transplanting  families  as  tenants  on  New  York  farms. 
The  assistant  commissioner  in  charge  of  this  office  will  report 
to  the  department  that  in  the  past  fiscal  year  ninety  families 
have  thus  been  sent  to  the  country,  and  about  900  single  men 
as  farm  laborers. 

Neither  the  Division  of  Information  conducted  by  the  federal 
government  nor  the  Agricultural  Labor  Bureau  of  the  state  gov- 
ernment would  be  in  any  way  hampered  or  displaced  by  the 
employment  bureau,  but  both  could  and  doubtless  would  co- 
operate with  it  to  the  mutual  advantage  of  all  concerned. 

It  is  sometimes  thought  that  the  cheapening  of  daily  news- 
papers, and  the  development  of  the  want  advertisements,  afford 
a  means  of  supplying  the  need  in  question.  Such  advertisements 
have,  of  course,  a  distinct  field  of  usefulness,  although  one  per- 
haps more  restricted  than  is  ordinarily  supposed.  To  ascertain 
whether  advertisements  by  employers  and  by  applicants  for  work 
respectively  vary  in  accordance  with  well  known  conditions  of 
trade  activities  and  depression,  and  to  get  some  idea  of  the 
nature  of  the  "wants"  thus  advertised,  I  have  had  a  careful 
examination  made  of  the  want  columns  of  two  newspapers  in 
New  York  City  on  selected  days  in  1902  and  1905,  representing 
what  may  be  considered  normal  conditions  of  trade,  and  in  the 
winter  of  1907-08,  covering  the  transitional  period  from  the 
activity  of  the  early  autumn  to  the  depression  of  the  winter. 
This  study  of  New  York  newspapers  is  supplemented  by  a  simi- 
lar examination  on  a  slightly  different  plan  of  the  files  of 
Chicago  newspapers. 

My  conclusion,  based  upon  personal  examination  of  want 
columns,  upon  this  detailed  examination  of  the  files  of  New  York 
and  Chicago  newspapers  on  certain  selected  days,  and  on  con- 
ference with  others  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of  following 
such  advertisements  in  connection  with  the  work  of  the  Free 
State  Employment  Bureaus,  is  that  the  want  columns,  although" 
a  factor  in  the  general  mediation  between  employers  and  em- 
ployees in  clerical  occupations,  in  certain  kinds  of  miscellaneous 
odd  jobs,  and  in  some  of  the  skilled  trades,  do  not  by  any  means 
meet  the  entire  need,  and  that  the  question  of  their  usefulness 


168  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

is  by  no  means  to  be  ascertained  merely  by  measuring  the  space 
which  they  occupy  on  the  padded  page  of  many  newspapers. 

At  my  request  the  director  of  the  Bureau  of  Social  Research 
in  the  New  York  School  of  Philanthropy  assigned  one  of  the 
fellows  of  the  bureau  to  the  task  of  interviewing  the  secretaries 
of  a  number  of  representative  trade  unions  to  ascertain  what  are 
their  methods  for  rinding  work  for  their  unemployed  members, 
and  incidentally  to  obtain  their  views  as  to  the  desirability  of 
establishing  an  employment  bureau  so  far  as  concerns  its  pos- 
sible usefulness  to  their  own  members.  This  inquiry  was  supple- 
mented by  similar  interviews  with  representative  employers,  with 
the  officers  of  associations  of  manufacturers  and  other  employers 
and  with  representatives  of  the  important  railways. 

It  appears  that  in  those  trades  which  are  completely  organized 
and  in  which  there  is  practically  no  non-union  labor,  the  union 
is  itself  the  ordinary  means  of  communication  between  employer 
and  employee.  In  general  the  system  of  finding  work  for  unem- 
ployed members  is  exceedingly  haphazard.  The  general  opinion 
of  the  representatives  of  trade  unions  interviewed  in  the  course 
of  this  inquiry  appeared  to  be  that  their  mechanism  was  not 
sufficient  to  deal  with  the  situation  as  a  whole  or  even  within 
their  own  trades,  so  far  as  it  is  a  matter  of  distributing  labor 
to  other  communities.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  cooperation 
of  union  labor  can  be  secured  in  carrying  out  the  plan  for  an 
employment  bureau,  if  that  is  desired,  and  it  would  seem  on 
many  accounts  to  be  very  desirable. 

Interviews  with  employers  were  on  the  whole  rather  unsatis- 
factory because  of  the  indefinite  and  tentative  manner  in  which 
the  proposition  could  be  explained,  but  the  two  interesting 
results  of  such  interviews  are  first  that  there  would  be  no  lack 
of  disposition  to  use  the  services  of  the  bureau  as  soon  as  it  was 
shown  that  it  was  in  position  to  do  its  work,  and  second  that 
even  among  the  few  whom  we  visited  there  were  some  who 
had  reasons  of  their  own  for  instant  hostility  to  any  plan  which 
would  by  arrangement  with  higher  officials  deprive  them  of  their 
present  prerogatives  of  hiring  labor.  One  service  which  the 
employment  bureau  would  be  led  to  undertake,  though  perhaps 
not  at  the  beginning,  would  be  the  investigation  of  conditions 
uriSer  which  contract  labor  is  engaged  and  managed  on  some  of 
the  railway  systems. 

There  are  no  doubt  still  to  be  found  some  who  look  with 


UNEMPLOYMENT  169 

misgiving  on  any  plan  for  helping  people  to  find  work,  even 
though  they  are  expected  directly  or  indirectly  to  pay  for  the 
service,  lest  the  feeling  of  personal  responsibility  should  thereby 
be  undermined.  A  bureau,  however,  conducted  on  a  business 
basis,  expecting  eventually  to  pay  reasonable  dividends  on  the 
capital  invested  in  it,  would  scarcely  be  open  to  this  objection. 
What  is  proposed  is  not  a  paternalistic  assumption  of  respon- 
sibility for  employees,  but  the  rendering  of  definite  economic 
service  in  return  for  suitable  compensation.  Workingmen  out 
of  a  job  may  now  look  to  their  unions  or  advertise  in  a  want 
column,  or  register  in  a  commercial  employment  agency,  or 
tramp  about  from  place  to  place  applying  personally  for  work. 
It  is  the  last  method  that  is  ordinarily  in  the  mind  of  those  who 
favor  "throwing  persons  upon  their  own  responsibility"  in  the 
matter  of  finding  work.  To  patronize  a  well-conducted  employ- 
ment bureau  which  gave  a  full  equivalent  for  the  fee  charged 
— though  the  collection  of  the  fee  might  be  postponed  until 
wages  should  be  received — would  be  only  a  very  sensible  and 
commendable  manner  of  meeting  this  responsibility. 

In  order  to  answer  this  question,  I  have  thought  it  expedient 
to  visit  personally  the  free  state  employment  bureaus  in  Boston, 
Columbus,  Cleveland,  Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  Minneapolis,  and 
have  obtained  such  information  concerning  these  and  other  state 
and  municipal  bureaus  as  is  contained  in  their  annual  reports 
and  is  available  in  the  United  States  Labor  Bureau  and  else- 
where. While  some  of  these  bureaus  are,  of  course,  better  than 
others,  I  regret  to  report  that  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain  they  are 
everywhere  in  politics,  and  are  too  perfunctory  and  inefficient 
in  their  methods  to  become  factors  in  bringing  about  any  real 
adjustment  between  work  and  workers.  The  salary  paid  to  the 
superintendent  of  a  free  state  bureau  is  $1,200  or  less — usually 
less.  He  has  often  only  one  assistant,  and  sometimes  none. 
Judging  from  the  experience  of  New  York  and  other  states,  the 
fundamental  defects  in  such  state  bureaus  are  not  easily  to  be 
overcome.  The  peculiar  relation  between  organized  labor  and 
the  state  employment  bureau  and  the  temptation  to  utilize  the 
bureau  merely  to  make  it  appear  that  the  administration  of  the 
day  is  "doing  something  for  labor"  are  apparently  ineradicable 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  efficient  service.  The  municipal  bureaus 
in  Duluth  and  Seattle  appear  to  be  free  from  the  defects  of  the 
state  bureaus,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  make  favorable  comment 


i;o  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

on  particular  features  of  certain  of  the  bureaus,  especially  those 
in  Massachusetts  and  Wisconsin,  but  I  have  been  unable  to  find 
in  any  of  these  state  bureaus  as  now  conducted  warrant  for 
the  belief  that  the  reestablishment  of  the  New  York  State  Bureau 
would  be  advisable  in  itself  or  that  it  would  in  any  appreciable 
degree  serve  the  purpose  of  giving  substantial  and  practical  aid 
to  the  community  in  solving  the  problem  which  we  have  in  mind. 

Every  step  in  advance  in  the  elimination  of  fraud  and 
extortion  in  the  ordinary  commercial  agencies  only  increases  the 
need  of  a  general  agency  which  shall  be  in  position  to  com- 
mand public  confidence  and  shall  unquestionably  be  free  from 
the  abuses  which  state  regulation  is  intended  to  prevent.  Stricter 
regulation  and  supervision,  while  desirable  on  their  own  account, 
do  not  lessen  the  increasing  need  for  an  agency  which  will  be 
conducted  primarily  for  the  good  that  it  will  do  rather  than  for 
the  profits  that  it  can  earn. 

As  a  result  of  careful  study  of  the  whole  subject,  involving  a 
considerable  amount  of  reading,  visits  to  several  states  and  to 
the  national  capital,  and  extended  correspondence,  the  coopera- 
tion of  the  Bureau  of  Social  Research,  and  numerous  personal 
interviews,  especially  in  regard  to  the  reasons  for  the  failure 
of  experiments  which  have  been  made  in  New  York  City,  I  am 
of  the  opinion  that  the  establishment  of  an  employment  bureau 
substantially  on  the  lines  indicated  in  Mr.  SchifFs  memorandum 
is  desirable,  that  the  need  for  such  a  bureau  is  very  great,  that  it 
is  not  met  by  other  existing  agencies,  and  cannot  be  met  by 
other  plans  more  effectively  or  economically  than  by  that 
proposed. 

The  only  serious  modification  which  I  would  recommend  is 
that  a  fee  should  be  charged  to  employees  rather  than  to  em- 
ployers, unless  it  is  found  practicable  and  advisable  to  charge 
a  fee  to  both.  I  believe  that  eventually  the  bureau  could  make 
such  a  position  for  itself  that  large  employers  would  be  willing 
to  make  contracts  with  it,  perhaps  on  an  annual  basis,  which 
would  be  mutually  advantageous,  but  I  doubt  the  wisdom  of 
charging  a  specific  fee  for  each  employee  furnished,  especially 
in  the  initial  stages  of  the  experiment.  I  have  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  from  the  very  beginning  it  could  be  made  apparent 
to  employees  that  in  paying  a  reasonable  fee  for  the  services 
of  the  bureau  they  would  be  making  a  good  investment.  If  em- 
ployers were  charged  and  not  employees,  my  fear  would  be 


UNEMPLOYMENT  171 

that  the  tendency  of  the  bureau  would  be  to  serve  the  interests 
of  employers,  rather  than  those  of  employees.  It  is  of  course 
our  desire  that  it  should  serve  both,  and  primarily  the  com- 
munity. 

There  is  complete  unanimity  of  opinion  that  the  success  of 
the  whole  enterprise  will  depend  upon  the  capacity  of  its  exe- 
cutive officer,  although  it  is  also  conceivable  that  a  board  of 
trustees  or  managers  might  be  created  that  would  contribute 
very  materially  to  its  success.  My  suggestion  would  be  that 
the  board  should  consist  of  not  more  than  nine  members,  and 
that  among  them  there  should  be  at  least  one  labor  representa- 
tive, and  one  social  worker  or  university  instructor  interested 
in  the  problem  on  the  scientific  side.  This  suggestion  is  made 
simply  in  the  interest  of  efficiency  and  public  usefulness,  but  if 
those  who  provide  the  capital  feel  that  they  should  exercise  ex- 
clusive control  over  the  bureau,  some  part  of  the  advantage 
which  I  have  in  mind  might  be  secured  by  creating  an  advisory 
board  with  an  even  larger  representation  of  such  elements  as 
I  have  proposed  for  the  board  of  managers. 

The  general  plan  on  which  the  bureau  should  be  conducted 
has  perhaps  already  been  sufficiently  indicated.  Recapitulating, 
however,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  I  would  recommend : 

That  there  be  organized  in  the  City  of  New  York  an  employment 
bureau  under  a  board  of  trustees  composed  of  experienced  men  rep- 
resenting the  mercantile,  academic  philanthropic  and  industrial  classes, 
each  member  of  the  board,  however,  being  selected  not  so  much  in  his 
representative  capacity  as  because  of  his  probable  usefulness  as  an  active 
working  member  of  the  board.  The  control  should,  of  course,  remain 
with  those  who  furnish  the  working  funds,  but  need  not  be  exclusively 
limited  to  them. 

The  bureau  should  be  placed  under  a  manager  of  great  executive 
ability,  with  the  necessary  number  of  assistants,  and  the  staff  should  be 
thoroughly  conversant  with  the  peculiarities  of  the  various  groups  that 
compose  New  York  City's  working  population.  Herein  lies  the  special 
strength  of  the  small  and  often  badly  conducted  employment  agencies, 
that  those  who  manage  them  really  know  their  people.  The  employment 
bureau  cannot  be  expected  to  succeed  unless  it  can  secure  similar  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  peculiarities,  and  especially  of  the  valuable 
qualities  of  particular  groups.  It  would  be  necessary  to  have  inter- 
preters, men  to  take  charge  of  gangs  in  transit,  and  to  perform  virtually 
the  functions  now  exercised  by  the  padroni — although  without  the  abuses 
of  that  system. 

The  bureau  should  establish  an  organization  covering  all  sections  of 
the  United  States,  so  that  it  shall  be  in  immediate  and  constant  touch 
with  requirements  for  labor  and  employment  wherever  such  may  exist, 


172  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

but  its  benefits  should  accrue  primarily  to  the  unemployed  of  the  City 
of  New  York.  It  may  not  be  necessary  to  maintain  agencies  perma- 
nently in  particular  localities  outside  of  New  York,  although  it  might 
be  advisable  to  have  one  or  two  branch  headquarters.  For  the  most 
part  the  agents  in  the  field  would  be  moving  from  place  to  place,  estab- 
lishing relations  with  employers,  looking  after  the  interests  of  men  whq 
had  been  sent  to  work,  and  ascertaining  when  they  would  be  free  from 
particular  engagements,  so  that  there  would  be  little  loss  of  time  in  trans- 
ferring them  to  other  places  where  they  were  needed. 

The  bureau  should  charge  a  reasonable  fee  to  employees,  although 
waiving  this,  as  private  employment  agencies  do,  whenever  it  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  supply  particular  demands  and  postponing  it  until  it 
can  be  paid  from  wages  whenever  employees  are  entirely  without  funds. 
Eventually  the  bureau  might  make  contracts  with  employers  on  the  basis 
of  compensation  to  the  bureau  for  its  services,  but  my  suggestion  would 
be  that  the  service  be  free  to  employers  until  it  had  been  demonstrated 
that  the  bureau  is  in  position  to  do  this  work  as  well  as  other  agencies 
or  better. 

On  account  of  the  general  dissatisfaction  with  all  existing 
systems — free  employment  bureaus,  ordinary  private  commer- 
cial agencies,  want  advertisements,  employers'  exchanges,  trade 
union  registers,  etc.,  and  for  other  reasons  already  indicated,  I 
am  of  the  opinion  that  an  employment  bureau  conducted  as  has 
been  proposed  with  a  working  capital  of  $100,000,  would  even- 
tually become  self-supporting,  and  would  pay  a  reasonable,  or 
even,  if  that  were  desired,  a  very  substantial  dividend  on  the 
capital  invested.  As  the  motives  of  those  who  would  establish 
the  bureau  are  not,  however,  pecuniary,  but  public-spirited,  I 
would  recommend  that  the  bureau  be  incorporated  on  a  plan 
similar  to  that  of  the  Provident  Loan  Society,  limiting  dividends 
to  6  per  cent  and  providing  that  the  surplus,  if  any  should  be 
accumulated,  be  devoted  to  some  appropriate  public  purpose. 

Aside  from  the  main  purpose  of  helping  the  unemployed  to 
get  work,  I  would  expect  that  a  bureau  of  the  kind  that  is  under 
consideration  would  have  five  indirect  and  incidental  but  exceed- 
ingly important  functions: 

(1)  By  competition  it  would  help  to  eliminate  the  evils  of 
the  ordinary  commercial  agencies. 

(2)  By  opening  up  opportunities  for   employment  in  other 
communities,  both  urban   and  rural,  it  would  contribute  to  the 
solution  of  the  overshadowing  and  increasingly  serious  problem 
of  congestion  of  population  in  New  York  City. 

(3)  It  would  gradually  establish   standards  of  work  which 
might  eventually,  if  the  establishment  of  a  State  Bureau  or  even 


UNEMPLOYMENT  173 

a  National  Bureau  is  found  expedient,  be  taken  over  in  the  man- 
agement of  such  official  bureaus.  Conditions  in  this  country  do 
not  at  present  seem  favorable  for  establishing  high  standards  in 
official  bodies  of  this  kind.  This  is  greatly  to  be  deplored,  and 
it  is  doubtful  whether  voluntary  agencies  in  the  field  of  social 
work  can  render  a  better  service  than  by  working  out  at  private 
expense  and  under  the  more  favorable  conditions  of  private 
initiative,  standards  of  work  which  will  subsequently  modify  the 
work  of  public  agencies  if  they  become  desirable.  Without 
attempting  to  anticipate  whether  social  legislation  in  this  coun- 
try will  follow  the  course  which  it  has  taken  in  all  European 
countries,  including  Great  Britain,  we  may  at  least  feel  it  to  be 
a  patriotic  duty  to  do  anything  that  is  possible  to  be  prepared 
for  such  legislation  by  unhampered  experiment  with  the  prob- 
lems which  elsewhere  have  already  become  governmental  func- 
tions. If  on  the  other  hand  it  is  found  that  recent  tendencies 
in  these  directions  are  modified  or  reversed  and  that  such  activi- 
ties are  to  remain  indefinitely  in  private  hands,  then  nothing  is 
lost  but  everything  is  gained  by  such  pioneer  work  as  is  now  pro- 
posed. 

(4)  It  would    help   to  decasualize  labor,   if  we    may   use   a 
phrase  which  has  become  more  familiar  in  England  than  in  this 
country,  but  which  implies  a  lamentable  condition  towards  which 
a   large   part   of   our   unskilled  labor  is  unfortunately    tending. 
Any    employer  in  undertaking   a  new  job   would   prefer,   other 
things  being  equal,  to  secure  laborers  who  have  been  at  work, 
rather  than  men  who  have  been  demoralized  by  idleness  or  under- 
employment. 

(5)  Eventually  the  employment  bureau  might  exert  an  im- 
portant influence  on  the  critical  period  in  the  lives  of  boys  and 
young  men  when  they  first  begin  work.    We  have  child  labor 
committees   and  a   widespread  interest  in  protective   legislation, 
but  not  enough  attention  has  been  given  to  the  kind  of  work  in 
which  working  boys  from  fourteen  to  twenty  years  of  age  are 
engaged.    It  is  largely  lost  time,   paying  relatively  high  wages 
at  the  start  but  leading  nowhere.    While  it  could  not  become  the 
main  function  of  the  employment  bureau  to  deal  with  the  prob- 
lem,  it  might  incidentally  contribute  materially   to  its  solution. 

The  strongest,  and  to  my  mind  conclusive,  argument  in  favor 
of  the  establishment  of  an  employment  bureau  is  to  be  found  in 
the  very  dearth  of  information  and  even  of  views  which  this 


174  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

brief  and  necessarily  superficial  inquiry  has  disclosed.  There 
appears  to  be  no  way  of  finding  how  much  mal-adjustment  actu- 
ally exists  either  in  our  own  city  or  between  this  and  other  com- 
munities, or  of  discovering  remedies  except  by  trying  the  ex- 
periment. At  the  end  of  a  year  or  two  of  actual  work  by  such 
an  employment  bureau  as  has  been  proposed,  we  would  have  a 
body  of  experience  and  information  from  which  conclusions 
could  be  drawn  in  regard  to  many  important  questions  of  public 
policy  and  of  private  social  effort.  It  may  seem  extravagant  to 
say  that  the  mere  collection  of  such  information  and  its  proper 
interpretation  would  be  worth  all  that  it  is  proposed  to  spend 
in  the  experiment  even  if  it  should  prove  to  be  an  utter  failure, 
but  I  believe  this  to  be  a  moderate  and  reasonable  estimate. 
I  do  not  believe  that  it  will  be  a  failure,  and  have  indicated 
what  appear  to  me  to  be  convincing  reasons  for  believing  that 
it  will  be  a  success. 


Outlook.    109:394-8.    February  17,  1915 

Uncle   Sam:   Employment   Agent.    William   B.   Wilson 

Labor — meaning  by  this  term  the  great  mass  of  those  who 
toil  for  their  living,  from  the  humblest  to  the  most  skilled — 
may  well  be  said  to  consist  of  two  entities,  both  of  which 
embrace  the  classification  and  categories  known  as  union  or 
non-union,  skilled  or  unskilled,  industrial  or  professional  or 
agricultural,  and  male  or  female.  These  entities  may  be  broadly 
described  as  the  "employed"  and  the  "unemployed,"  two  abstract 
terms  by  means  of  which  the  labor  movement  can  be  at  once 
identified. 

The  last  available  statistics  show  that  in  1900  there  were 
29,073,233  persons  ten  years  of  age  or  over  engaged  in  gainful 
occupations,  as  follows:  agricultural  pursuits,  10,381,765;  pro- 
fessional service,  1,258,538;  domestic  and  personal  service, 
5,580,657;  trade  and  transportation,  4,766,964;  and  mechanical 
and  manufacturing  pursuits,  7,085,309.  Of  these,  6,468,964,  or 
22.3  per  cent,  were  unemployed  at  some  time  during  the  year, 
the  period  of  idleness  varying  from  one  day  to  the  rare  extreme 
of  twelve  months.  Only  2.5  per  cent  were  idle  from  seven  to 
twelve  months.  Roughly  estimated,  therefore,  every  fifth  wage- 
earner  is  unemployed  at  some  time.  But,  regardless  of  whether 


UNEMPLOYMENT  175 

every  fifth  wage-earner  in  the  United  States  (or  perhaps  every 
third  now,  if  Unemployment  has  increased),  is  without  work, 
the  fact  remains  that  we  have  in  this  country  a  great  number 
of  persons  without  work. 

The  organic  act  creating  the  Department  of  Labor  declares 
that  the  purpose  of  the  department  shall  be  to  foster,  promote, 
and  develop  the  welfare  of  the  wage-earners  of  the  United 
States,  to  improve  their  working  conditions,  and  to  advance 
their  opportunities  for  profitable  employment.  In  the  execution 
of  that  purpose  the  element  of  fairness  to  every  interest  is  of 
equal  importance ;  and  fairness  between  wage-earner  and  wage- 
earner,  between  wage-earner  and  employer,  between  employer 
and  employer,  and  between  each  and  the  public  as  a  wihole,  has 
been  the  supreme  motive  and  purpose  of  our  official  activity. 

It  is  evident  that  improving  the  working  conditions  of  wage- 
earners  means  to  look  after  that  entity  of  the  wage-earning 
class  in  this  country  that  is  already  employed  by  endeavoring  to 
bring  about  a  better  understanding  between  them  and  their 
employers,  and  to  obtain  for  them  all  reasonable  betterment, 
such  as  higher  wages,  shorter  hours,  sanitary  surroundings,  and 
opportunities  for  self-help.  Advancing  opportunities  for  profit- 
able employment  means  not  only  to  enable  a  wage-earner  to 
obtain  a  promotion  with  a  corresponding  increase  of  salary,  but 
also  to  provide  profitable  employment  to  the  unemployed,  to 
secure  the  most  permanent  work  and  the  highest  possible  wages. 

So  far  as  the  employed  element  is  concerned,  the  Department 
of  Labor  has  made  great  progress.  In  any  of  three  ways  the 
welfare  of  wage-earners  could  be  fostered  while  the  prosperity 
of  employers  and  the  peace  and  good  order  of  society  at  large 
were  conserved.  Amicable  settlements  between  employers  and 
employees  without  mediation  are  manifestly  first  in  the  order  of 
preference.  Mediation  comes  next.  Arbitration  is  third.  But 
any  of  the  three  is  preferable  to  strikes  or  lockouts. 

But  now  the  Department  of  Labor  has  started  a  real,  intelli- 
gent effort  to  ascertain  the  number  of  wage-earners  out  of  work 
and  the  causes  of  Unemployment,  the  number  that  may  obtain 
employment,  and  where  it  may  be  had  throughout  the  United 
States.  In  this  the  government  is  undertaking  the  task  of 
providing  employers  with  partners  in  production,  the  workman 
with  information  which  may  keep  him  steadily  employed — a 
work  which  parallels  the  government's  interest  in  indicating  to 


i;6  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

manufacturers  and  producers  where  they  may  find  markets  for 
the  finished  product. 

It  happens  every  year,  and  at  various  times  during  the  year, 
that  men  of  a  given  calling  are  idle  in  one  locality,  while 
workmen  of  that  calling  are  needed  elsewhere.  This  is  due  to 
two  causes:  lack  of  information  among  the  idle  wage-earners 
and  the  employers  who  need  them,  and  lack  of  means  to  defray 
transportation  expenses  in  getting  from  the  place  of  idleness 
to  a  place  of  employment. 

The  problem  was  to  find  a  simple  and  yet  efficacious  method 
of  bringing  this  information  to  the  attention  of  those  who 
needed  it — information  that  had  to  be  widely  advertised  in 
conspicuous  places  to  which  everybody  had  access.  At  last  a 
plan  was  formulated  by  means  of  which,  with  the  aid  of  the 
Post-Office  Department,  information  relating  to  the  distribution 
of  labor  could  be  widely  scattered  and  posted  under  the  auspices 
of  the  United  States  Government. 

The  plan  consists  of  dated  bulletins  sent  out  by  the  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  to  postmasters  throughout  the  country,  by  whom 
they  are  posted  on  the  bulletin-boards  so  that  every  post-office 
patron — and  this  means  practically  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
— can  easily  refer  to  the  information.  These  are  known  as 
"Bulletins  of  Opportunities."  They  are  replaced  with  others 
from  time  to  time  as  necessary,  and  suitable  notice  is  given 
when  they  become  inoperative. 

This  plan  'has  received  the  indorsement  of  the  various  state 
authorities,  who  have  been,  and  are,  cooperating  with  the  De- 
partment of  Labor  in  scattering  information  about  labor  oppor- 
tunities and  conditions  in  their  respective  states. 

For  instance,  on  May  27  last,  Charles  L.  Daugherty,  State 
Labor  Commissioner  of  Oklahoma,  informed  the  Department  of 
Labor  of  opportunities  to  work  in  that  state,  and  the  following 
bulletin  was  sent  to  postmasters  with  the  request  that  it  be 
posted  in  a  conspicuous  place  and  have  public  attention  called 
to  it  through  the  press,  in  the  hope  that  the  needs  of  the  farmers 
of  Oklahoma  might  be  supplied  and  idle  men  afforded 
employment : 

Would  it  be  possible  for  you  to  communicate  the  needs  of  this  state  by 
way  of  men  for  the  wheat  harvest  through  any  of  the  official  channels  of 
the  state  department?  We  will  need  from  12,000  to  15,000  men  at  from 
$2  to  $2.50  per  day  with  board  to  help  harvest  our  wheat  and  thresh  same, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  177 

and  85  per  cent  of  men  so  employed  will  be  given  employment  in  this  state 
by  the  farmers  in  handling  the  various  forage  crops,  which  promise  a  big 
yield  at  this  time,  thereby  guaranteeing  from  four  to  six  months'  steady 
work.  The  state  will  maintain  free  employment  offices  at  Oklahoma  City, 
Enid,  Alva,  Woodward,  Frederick,  and  other  points  in  the  state  to  help 
distribute  the  men,  and  any  publication  you  can  give  this  matter  through 
your  department  will  be  greatly  appreciated  by  the  citizens  of  this  state. 

On  June  24  the  Division  of  Information  sent  out  the  follow- 
ing notice  to  postmasters  requesting  that  they  remove  from  their 
bulletin-boards  the  notice  of  May  27  and  substitute  it  with  the 
later  bulletin: 

The  state  officials  in  Kansas,  Oklahoma,  and  Missouri  have  notified  this 
division  that  a  sufficient  number  of  men  have  proceeded  to  those  states  to 
meet  the  demands  for  help  in  the  harvest  fields,  and  South  Dakota  advises 
that  many  applications  are  being  received  for  work  in  that  state. 

All  persons  are  accordingly  advised  not  to  proceed  to  any  of  these 
states  with  the  expectation  of  procuring  work  in  the  harvest  fields  without 
first  communicating  with  and  securing  definite  assurances  of  employment 
from  one  of  the  following  officials:  Director  of  the  State  Free  Employment 
Bureau,  Topeka,  Kansas;  State  Labor  Commissioner,  Oklahoma  City,  Okla- 
homa; Labor  Commissioner,  Jefferson  City,  Missouri;  and  Commissioner  of 
Immigration,  Pierre.  South  Dakota. 

Later  and  more  detailed  bulletins,  covering  opportunities  for 
work  to  couples  and  individuals,  are  a  development  of  the  same 
plan.  One  of  these  bulletins  contains  nine  opportunities.  In 
some  cases  transportation  is  advanced  by  the  employers. 

In  Blue  Earth  County,  Minnesota,  one  married  couple  was 
required— the  man  to  husk  corn  at  5  cents  a  bushel,  and  all 
other  work  at  17^2  cents  an  hour;  the  wife  to  cook  and  receive 
$4  a  week,  including  free  house,  garden  patch,  fuel,  and  milk. 
In  Frontier  County,  Nebraska,  a  man,  American,  English,  Ger- 
man, Swedish,  or  Danish,  single,  was  wanted  for  a  permanent 
position,  to  pay  $15  to  $20  in  winter  and  $20  to  $25  in  the  sum- 
mer, transportation  being  furnished. 

Thousands  of  similar  opportunities  have  come  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Department  of  Labor,  with  the  result  that  every 
step  will  now  be  taken  to  acquaint  the  general  public  with  them. 
At  the  present  time  these  opportunities,  and  the  department's 
activities  in  that  connection,  are  strictly  limited  to  alien  immi- 
grants, but  as  soon  as  plans  'have  been  perfected  Congress  will 
be  asked  for  authority  and  a  suitable  appropriation  to  enlarge 
the  scope  of  this  work  so  as  to  make  it  useful  to  citizens  of 
the  United  States. 


i;8  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

The  promotion  of  a  beneficial  distribution  of  admitted  aliens 
is  not,  as  many  believe,  solely  in  the  interest  of  the  foreigners 
who  immigrate  to  the  United  States.  It  would  not  be  beneficial 
to  this  country  to  have  any  considerable  number  of  the  aliens 
who  are  admitted  remain  in  idleness  or  sell  their  labor  in 
ruinous  competition  with  American  workingmen.  After  the  alien 
has  landed  he  should  not  be  permitted  to  wrong  himself  and 
others  through  ignorance  of  opportunities  about  which  he  can 
know  nothing,  but  which  could  be  made  known  to  him  on 
landing  or  afterwards,  when  he  will  be  in  a  more  receptive 
mood  than  when,  anxious  and  worried,  he  is  passing  examination 
for  admission. 

Thousands  of  immigrants  go  at  once,  on  being  admitted,  to 
localities  where  their  labor  is  not  in  demand,  and  have  to 
remain  indefinitely  awaiting  employment.  Often  this  leads  to 
congestion  in  our  big  cities.  Even  if  not  educated  in  our  lan- 
guage or  their  own,  they  are  surely  intelligent,  and  often  unusu- 
ally experienced  workers,  and  it  would  be  a  reflection  on  that 
intelligence  to  attribute  their  remaining  idle  in  one  place,  rather 
than  working  in  another,  to  either  choice  or  a  previous  knowl- 
edge of  existing  conditions.  It  came  under  the  personal  obser- 
vation of  the  chief  of  the  Division  of  Information  that  a  number 
of  aliens  passing  through  Ellis  Island  were  destined  to  a  certain 
locality  in  Pennsylvania  where  they  could  not  obtain  employ- 
ment without  displacing  others.  These  workers  furnish  a  supply 
for  the  labor  agent,  the  employment  agent,  and  the  padrone  to 
direct  later  on,  and  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  many  of  these 
agents,  through  collusion  with  corporation  foremen,  practically 
sell  the  same  workmen  over  and  over  again  for  a  fee  of  $i  or 
$2  a  head. 

In  connection  with  this  new  plan  of  labor  distribution  it  is 
pertinent  to  remark  that  it  would  be  of  great  help  in  filling  a 
long-needed  want  in  behalf  of  not  only  alien  but  also  American 
workers  in  seasonal  trades,  whose  occupation  depends  upon  the 
seasons  of  the  year  and,  inferentially,  on  the  geographical  loca- 
tion. It  would  offer  what  may  be  called  a  vacation  with  pay,  on 
the  assumption  that  a  vacation  is  not  necessarily  a  period  of 
idleness,  but  more  a  dhange  of  scene  and  a  change  of  occupation. 

A  tailor,  for  instance,  normally  working  at  his  trade  eight 
or  nine  months  in  the  East,  could,  with  advantage  and  benefit, 
avail  himself  of  an  opportunity  to  work  out  of  doors  in  the 


UNEMPLOYMENT  179 

middle  west  for  three  or  four  months.  He  would  gain  in  health 
because  of  the  change  of  climate  and  the  fresh  air;  working 
with  his  muscles,  without  strain  to  'his  eyes,  would  rest  the 
latter  after  the  strain  occasioned  by  such  minute  work  as 
stitching;  a  change  of  diet  from  ordinary  boarding-house  or 
lunch-room  food  to  healthy  country  meals  would  be  desirable; 
and  last,  but  not  least,  he  would  have  no  need  to  impair  his 
savings.  Meanwhile  his  absence  from  the  city  would  give  some 
one  else  a  chance  to  do  what  extra  work  there  might  remain 
to  be  done. 

These  opportunities  are  not  limited  only  to  the  single  men; 
they  are  equally  good  for  married  couples.  If  there  are  children, 
some  difficulties  might  be  encountered,  but  these  are  details  that 
each  must  study  out  for  himself. 

Unemployment,  as  a  fact,  is  something  with  which  the  public 
is  not  familiar.  The  assertion  has  sometimes  been  made  that 
the  Unemployment  question  in  the  United  States  is  unimportant ; 
that  all  desiring  work  in  this  country  can  obtain  it,  and  that 
those  who  are  idle,  although  able  to  work,  are  idle  from  choice. 

Were  it  true  that  the  Unemployment  of  able-bodied  persons 
is  due  solely  or  largely  to  laziness,  the  amount  of  Unemploy- 
ment would  obviously  remain  fairly  constant.  Not  many  more 
persons  are  sick  or  disabled  or  lazy  in  the  winter  than  in  sum- 
mer, and  certainly  no  more  in  1903  and  in  1909  and  in  1914 
than  in  the  intervening  years. 

Yet,  taking  the  New  York  statistics  for  example,  it  is  readily 
ascertainable  that  there  are  intervals  of  periods  of  high  Unem- 
ployment, and  that  they  return  more  or  less  regularly.  Among 
union  workers  in  New  York  and  Massachusetts  two  or  three 
times  as  many  are  idle  at  the  end  of  March  as  at  the  end  of 
September  each  year.  In  September,  1905,  only  4.8  per  cent  of 
all  union  workers  in  New  York  were  reported  idle.  In  March, 
1906,  the  percentage  was  twice  as  great.  By  March,  1907,  it  had 
doubled  again,  and  by  March  of  the  following  year  it  had  nearly 
doubled  again.  Clearly,  incapacity  or  laziness,  or  both  com- 
bined, do  not  vary  to  the  extent  thus  indicated.  The  weather 
is  doubtless  an  important  factor  in  causing  seasonal  fluctuations, 
but  cannot  account  for  variations  from  year  to  year.  Labor 
disputes,  the  New  York  statistics  show,  were  a  more  important 
factor  in  years  of  low  Unemployment  than  in  other  years.  It 
becomes  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  great  changes  in  the  amount 


i8o  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

of  Unemployment  are  due  primarily  to  variations  in  the  demand 
for  labor. 

Careful  study  of  tabulated  statistics  shows  that  the  all- 
important  cause  of  idleness  is  lack  of  work.  The  number  idle 
from  disability  remains  fairly  constant,  but  the  corresponding 
percentage  necessarily  rises  with  the  decrease  of  Unemployment 
from  other  causes.  This  brief  consideration  of  causes  of  Unem- 
ployment, which  include  lack  of  work,  lack  of  stock,  weather, 
labor  disputes,  disability,  strikes  or  lockouts,  other  causes  and 
reasons  not  stated,  is  sufficient  to  establish  as  fallacious  the 
frequent  assertion  that  all  who  desire  work  in  the  United  States 
can  obtain  it.  Even  if  at  the  best  seasons  of  the  best  years 
industrially  all  who  wanted  work  were  employed,  some  would 
be  out  of  work  the  next  month,  and  many  more,  it  is  evident 
from  the  above  considerations,  the  following  year  or  within  a 
very  few  years.  Those  who  become  unemployed  would  of 
course  be  less  efficient,  but  if  all  were  equally  capable  some 
would  lose  their  jobs  simply  because  industry  could  not  use  them. 

The  tendency  of  American  life  is  away  from  the  farm.  The 
first  object  the  immigrant's  eyes  focus  on  is  the  sky-scraper,  the 
many-storied  factory,  or  the  coal  mine.  Nothing  to  indicate 
that  agriculture  is  carried  on  in  this  country  is  disclosed  to  the 
immigrant,  who  is  to  become  a  future  citizen,  on  landing.  It 
is  therefore  necessary  for  us  to  see  that  immigrants,  the  largest 
percentage  of  whom  are  trained  agriculturists  against  a  very 
small  percentage  of  skilled  artisans,  shall  proceed  to  those  local- 
ities in  which  agriculture  and  agricultural  pursuits  offer  the  best 
inducements  and  prospects.  Otherwise  the  result  will  be  to 
lose  a  good  agriculturist  and  never  obtain  in  his  stead  a  skilled 
city  workman. 

In  a  consideration  of  agencies  for  the  distribution  of  labor 
it  must  be  remembered  that  such  agencies  deal  with  one  phase, 
but  only  one  phase,  of  the  Unemployment  problem.  If  men  are 
out  of  work  because  no  work  is  available,  such  agencies  are  of 
no  value.  Likewise,  if  wage-earners  are  idle  because  they  are 
either  unwilling  or  unable  to  work,  an  employment  office  can 
accomplish  nothing.  Again,  if  unskilled  men  are  idle  when 
skilled  men  only  are  wanted,  there  is  no  place  for  an  employ- 
ment bureau.  If,  however,  men  with  certain  qualifications  are 
idle  at  a  time  when  employers  are  seeking  men  with  those  same 
qualifications,  then  an  employment  agency  can  be  of  service. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  181 

This  most  obvious  limitation  upon  the  usefulness  of  employment 
bureaus  is  important.  Much  of  the  criticism  to  which  these 
agencies,  particularly  free  public  agencies,  are  subjected  is  due 
to  a  failure  to  recognize  the  limits  of  their  usefulness.  They 
cannot  make  work  and  they  cannot  give  workmen  energy  or 
ability.  They  can  serve  the  public  only  when  the  condition  of 
the  labor  market  permits  them  to  do  so. 

Within  the  field  thus  defined  employment  offices  have  a  great 
opportunity  for  usefulness.  An  employer  in  need  of  help  can- 
not know  what  particular  man  is  idle  or  in  want  of  work.  The 
unemployed  workman  cannot  know  which  one  of  a  thousand 
employers  needs  his  services.  To  bring  these  two  persons  to- 
gether is  the  province  of  an  employment  agent,  and,  whether  his 
office  is  maintained  by  the  state  or  municipality,  supported  by  a 
charitable  society,  or  operated  for  gain,  if  he  accomplishes  his 
purpose  expeditiously  and  satisfactorily  he  has  performed  a 
valuable  service. 

In  the  benefit  accruing  to  both  parties  through  the  inter- 
mediation of  an  employment  agency  may  be  seen  the  justification 
for  the  commercialized  agency,  which  charges  a  fee.  .  In  the 
effect  upon  the  character  of  the  workman,  as  well  as  the  material 
benefit  to  him  and  his  family,  is  found  the  argument  for  the 
philanthropic  agency.  And  in  the  advantage  accruing  to  the 
public  through  a  lessening  of  Unemployment  is  the  justification 
for  free  public  employment  bureaus.  In  addition  to  these  three 
general  classes  of  employment  agencies  two  others  of  importance 
may  be  enumerated:  those  maintained  by  large  firms  or  by 
associations  of  employers,  and  those  maintained  by  labor  unions. 

In  the  meantime  the  plan  of  gathering  information  as  to 
opportunities  for  work  in  all  states,  whether  for  one  person  or 
for  several  thousand  workers,  and  presenting  this  information 
to  the  public  in  general  by  appropriate  bulletins  posted  on  the 
official  bulletin-boards  at  the  post-offices,  cannot  fail  to  do  good. 
As  was  noted  at  the  beginning  of  this  article,  less  than  a  month 
intervened  between  the  time  of  the  notice  from  Oklahoma 
requiring  15,000  harvest  hands  and  the  subsequent  notice  that 
the  places  were  filled. 

This  is  quite  an  improvement  over  past  years,  when  farmers 
in  the  West  complained  late  into  the  summer  that  failure  to 
obtain  the  requisite  number  of  farm  hands  at  harvest  time  always 
caused  them  heavy  losses  of  money  or  grain. 

15 


i82  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Congress  will  see  its  way  clear  to 
enable  the  Department  of  Labor  further  to  expand  this  employ- 
ing movement,  to  perfect  this  clearing-house  of  labor,  and, 
particularly,  to  enable  us  to  adapt  its  usefulness  to  the  needs  of 
the  American  workingman,  because  there  are  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  opportunities  for  betterment,  for  a  change  of 
location,  or  for  higher  wages  for  American  toilers  who  would 
take  advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  better  themselves  if  they 
only  knew  where  to  go  or  to  whom  to  apply.  Every  vacancy 
created  means  one  more  place  for  the  unemployed;  and  if  we 
can  devise  and  perfect  the  plan  whereby  we  can  keep  aliens  from 
congesting  the  cities,  thus  giving  the  city-bred  folk  better  chances 
and  less  competition,  and  at  the  same  time  indicate  a  way  to  the 
city  folk  to  better  themselves  by  taking  advantage  of  oppor- 
tunities elsewhere,  mutual  help  will  thus  be  created  for  the 
unemployed. 

Fortnightly  Review.    100: 688-98.   October,  1913 

Labor  Exchanges  in  England.    H.  W.  J.  Stone 

You  will  inevitably  do  more  harm  than  good  unless  you  approach  this 
question  of  social  reform  with  a  full  consciousness  of  the  immense  diffi- 
culties which  surround  it,  and  the  dangers  which  must  necessarily  accom- 
pany it,  unless  it  is  carried  out  in  a  spirit  of  caution  and  sobriety,  which 
I  confess  may  not  be  absent  from  the  projects  of  radical  social  reformers, 
but  is  lamentably  absent  from  their  speeches. — Mr.  Balfour,  at  Edinburgh, 
24th  October  1911. 

In  giving  utterance  to  the  above  words  Mr.  Balfour  had  the 
National  Insurance  Act  particularly  in  mind,  but  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  they  apply  with  equal  force  to  the  disappointing 
results — admittedly  disappointing  results — of  the  Labor  Ex- 
changes Act  of  1909. 

Whereas  the  birth  of  labor  exchanges  in  Germany  would 
appear  to  have  taken  place  some  time  between  1893  and  1896, 
the  first  labor  bureau  in  this  country  was  established  at  Egham 
in  1885.  The  Egham  bureau  was  established  on  a  voluntary 
basis  by  the  late  Mr.  Nathaniel  Louis  Cohen  and  some  friends; 
but,  being  an  isolated  institution  serving  only  a  limited  area, 
was  foredoomed  to  failure,  except  in  so  far  as  the  experiment 
contained  the  germ  of  an  idea.  The  experiment,  however,  was 
well  worth  making,  as  the  experience  gained  proved  most 


UNEMPLOYMENT  183 

helpful  in  1906  when  Mr.  Cohen  became  a  member  of  the 
employment  exchanges  committee  of  the  Central  (Unemployed) 
Body  for  London,  working  a  system  of  exchanges  throughout 
the  Metropolis.  Following  on  the  Egham  experiment,  various 
municipal  bureaus  were  established  from  time  to  time;  but 
failure  dogged  their  efforts,  mainly  because  of  unintelligent  man- 
agement and  an  absence  of  cooperation.  The  Labor  Bureaus 
(London)  Act,  1902,  was  responsible  for  a  flitting  revival  of 
these  institutions  in  the  Metropolis.  Mr.  H.  D.  Lowry,  one  of 
H.  M.  inspectors  for  the  Local  Government  Board,  reported  in 
1906  the  existence  of  twenty-one  municipal  and  three  non- 
municipal  bureaus.  Twenty  of  these  during  the  twelve  months 
ending  March  31,  1905,  filled  16,290  situations.  Eleven  of  the 
municipal  bureaus  were  in  London  and  ten  outside.  At  that 
time  the  Finsbury  Borough  Council's  bureau  was  the  only  one 
transacting  any  substantial  volume  of  business  with  ordinary 
employers.  The  others  were  mainly  recruiting  offices  for  the 
supply  of  scavengers  to  borough  surveyors,  or  were  ultimately 
merged  in  the  work  of  the  distress  committees.  So  far  as 
London  was  concerned  an  effort  was  made  by  the  London 
Unemployed  Committee  (established  by  Mr.  Walter  Long  in 
1904,  when  he  was  president  of  the  Local  Government  Board) 
to  secure  cooperation  between  the  various  metropolitan  bureaus 
by  means  of  a  central  exchange,  in  order  that  a  man  registering 
for  work  at  Hampstead  might  have  an  opportunity  of  hearing  of 
suitable  work  offering  at  Lewisham,  and  so  forth.  This  effected 
a  slight  improvement  until  most  of  the  bureaus  were  merged  in 
the  work  of  the  distress  committees,  but  it  is  more  than  doubtful 
whether  the  scheme  could — under  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances— have  succeeded  ultimately,  on  account  of  the  control  of 
each  bureau  being  local  and  its  cooperation  with  the  central 
exchange  being  optional,  resulting  in  a  total  lack  of  coordination. 
Thus,  although  the  first  bureau  in  England  (that  at  Egham) 
preceded  the  German  experiment,  the  German  exchanges,  work- 
ing on  scientific  lines,  became  more  speedily  of  real  utility;  and 
by  the  time  the  first  organized  attempt  at  establishing  labor 
exchanges  in  this  country  was  made  by  the  Central  (Unem- 
ployed) Body  for  London  in  1906,  the  German  exchanges  were 
sufficiently  advanced  to  serve  as  a  model. 

From  the   evidence   of  Mr.   Walter  Long   and   Mr.    Gerald 
Balfour  given  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Poor  Laws, 


184  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

it  would  appear  that  they  regarded  the  establishment  of  labor 
exchanges  as  an  integral  function  of  the  bodies  administering 
the  Unemployed  Workmen  Act,  1905;  but,  with  the  exception  of 
London  and  Glasgow,  no  action  in  the  direction  of  establishing 
exchanges  appears  to  have  been  taken  by  the  local  bodies.  For 
this  inaction  the  Local  Government  Board  (by  this  time  under 
the  presidency  of  Mr.  John  Burns)  cannot  be  accounted  blame- 
less, for  there  is  no  record  of  any  effort  being  made  between 
1906  and  1909  to  draw  the  attention  of  local  bodies  to  their 
powers  and  duties  with  regard  to  the  establishment  of  exchanges 
under  the  act.  As  a  result  of  this  slackness  the  only  evidence 
of  any  value  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Poor  Laws 
and  Unemployment  was  that  relating  to  the  working  of  the 
metropolitan  employment  exchanges,  and  the  value  of  that  evi- 
dence was  necessarily  discounted  because  of  the  extremely 
limited  area  to  which  it  related.  These  metropolitan  employment 
exchanges  were  under  the  direct  control  of  the  Central  (Unem- 
ployed) Body  for  London,  the  registrations  at  the  twenty-six 
local  exchanges  being  totally  distinct  from  the  registrations  at 
distress  offices ;.  and  the  normal  vacancies  in  the  industrial 
market  were  the  sole  outlet  to  which  the  exchanges  sought  to 
introduce  their  applicants.  The  whole  system  was  telephonically 
linked  with  a  central  exchange,  which  acted  as  a  clearing  house 
for  the  Metropolis;  and  in  its  main  essentials  the  system  of 
working  was  that  now  adopted  by  the  Board  of  Trade  in  working 
the  Labor  Exchanges  Act,  1909.  These  exchanges  were  poorly 
housed  and  inadequately  staffed.  For  a  long  time  the  limit  for 
rent,  rates  and  taxes  fixed  by  the  Central  Body  was  £60  per 
annum,  irrespective  of  locality.  For  furnishing  and  structurally 
adapting  the  central  exchange  and  twenty-six  local  exchanges  a 
sum  of  £  1,000  was  allocated.  From  first  to  last  the  Central 
Body  appear  to  have  lacked  a  sufficiently  full  and  intelligent 
understanding  of  the  interesting  experiment  they  were  admin- 
istering in  the  capital  of  the  empire  in  a  spirit  which  cannot 
escape  the  charge  of  parsimony.  Notwithstanding  the  many 
initial  difficulties,  however,  these  exchanges  (now  absorbed  in 
the  Board  of  Trade  system)  effected  a  distinct  improvement  on 
previous  efforts. 

Although  the  results  achieved  by  the  metropolitan  employ- 
ment exchanges  were  of  a  more  encouraging  nature  than  those 
achieved  by  previous  efforts  in  this  country,  their  success  can 


UNEMPLOYMENT  185 

only  be  regarded  as  relative,  and  as  being  due  to  their  com- 
paratively superior  organization ;  and,  above  all  to  their  being 
under  a  single  control.  The  staff  deserve  a  very  high  tribute 
of  praise  for  their  enthusiasm  and  zeal  in  endeavoring  to  achieve 
success  in  the  face  of  many  discouragements — not  the  least  of 
which  were  the  lack  of  intelligent  sympathy  from  the  Local 
Government  Board  and  from  the  main  body  of  members  of  the 
Central  (Unemployed)  Body  itself.  Their  one  source  of  en- 
couragement was  the  Employment  Exchanges  Committee,  headed 
by  Mr.  W.  H.  Beveridge  (chairman),  whose  indefatigable 
efforts  have  received  their  reward  in  his  appointment  as  the 
first  director  of  the  Board  of  Trade  Exchanges. 

The  Unemployed  Workman  Act,  1905,  was  avowedly  an  ex- 
perimental act.  It  was  originally  given  a  life  of  three  years;  but, 
under  the  policy  of  drift  pursued  by  the  present  government 
with  regard  to  Unemployment,  it  has  been  included  in  the 
Expiring  Laws  Continuance  Act  each  year  since  1908.  The  "wait 
and  see"  government  have  not  availed  themselves  of  their  experi- 
ence of  the  working  of  the  act  to  formulate  any  comprehensively 
constructive  scheme  to  put  in  its  place.  In  1909  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill  (then  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade)  decided  to 
introduce  the  labor  exchanges  bill;  but  whether  his  determina- 
tion was  prompted  by  the  imminence  of  a  general  election,  or  by 
the  fact  that  he  had  satisfied  himself  that  he  was  justified  in  so 
doing  by  the  results  achieved  by  the  metropolitan  employment  ex- 
changes, is  a  matter  for  conjecture.  If  the  latter  was  his  pre- 
vailing consideration,  his  optimism  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
justified  by  results.  However,  the  bill  became  an  act,  and  a 
national  system  of  labor  exchanges  was  launched. 

The  results  anticipated  by  Mr.  Churchill  from  the  establish- 
ment of  labor  exchanges  were  greater  mobility  and  decasualiza- 
tion  of  labor ;  and  he  dwelt  eloquently  on  the  expectation  that 
they  would  do  away  with  the  necessity  for  an  unemployed 
workman  going  on  tramp  seeking  work,  or  that  Great  Britain 
was  leading  the  way  by  being  the  first  country  in  the  world  to 
establish  a  national  system.  These  expectations  show  us  the 
results  to  look  for  from  their  establishment,  and  it  will  be 
interesting  to  see  how  far  Great  Britain's  departure  from  the 
safe  path  of  experience  has  been  justified  by  results.  It  may 
also  be  profitable  to  consider  whether,  and  how,  any  lack  of 
success  can  be  remedied.  The  exchanges  have  had  the  inestim- 


i86  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

able  advantage  of  starting  on  their  career  during  a  cycle  of 
prosperity,  and  at  a  time,  therefore,  when  it  is  to  be  assumed 
that  employers  should  be  active  dealers  in  labor.  It  is  quite 
clear  that  unless  there  are  both  buyers  and  sellers  of  labor  the 
exchanges  can  be  of  no  real  service  to  the  community.  There- 
fore, if  the  exchanges  do  not  succeed  in  becoming  an  effective 
factor  in  the  organization  of  industry  with  rapidity,  the  cycle 
of  trade  depression  which  is  shortly  due  will  militate  against 
their  success  for  so  long  a  period  as  to  force  them  to  lose  the 
confidence  of  the  workers — and  consequently  of  the  employers 
also — to  such  an  extent  that  it  will  be  almost  impossible  for 
them  to  regain  it  against  the  next  cycle  of  prosperity.  In  short, 
they  must  "make  good"  immediately,  or  be  damned. 

It  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  the  venture  has  not  been  an 
immediate  success.  The  exchanges  started  opening  in  February, 
1910,  and  by  July,  1913,  430  had  been  established.  It  is  a  very 
significant  fact  that  although  three  and  three-quarter  years  have 
elapsed  no  annual  report  has  yet  been  issued.  It  is,  of  course, 
understood  that  the  period  of  beginnings  is  not  the  time  to 
arrive  at  sweeping  conclusions;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the 
first  three  years'  working  had  revealed  encouraging  results,  after 
making  due  allowance  for  the  initial  difficulties,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  the  Board  of  Trade  would  have  shown  no  more  reti- 
cence in  publishing  the  fact  than  they  did  in  publishing  a  report 
on  what  they  consider  to  be  the  satisfactory  working  of  unem- 
ployment insurance  in  July  of  this  year — twelve  months  after  the 
National  Insurance  Act  came  into  operation.  It  is  a  safe  assump- 
tion, consequently,  that  the  Board  of  Trade  regard  the  first 
three  'years'  working  of  the  exchanges  as  disappointing.  This 
view  is  confirmed  in  the  Report  on  Unemployment  Insurance 
by  the  Director  of  Labor  Exchanges  and  Unemployment  Insur- 
ance (p  43).  in  which  the  following  passage  occurs: 

It  seems  clear  that  much  could  be  done,  and  needs  to  be  done, 
towards  reducing  Unemployment  ....  by  hastening,  through  labour 
exchange  organisation,  the  passage  from  employment  to  employment. 

Apart  from  the  monthly  statistics  of  working,  which  appear 
in  the  Board  of  Trade  Labor  Gazette,  and  the  figures  which 
are  given  in  the  Annual  Abstract  of  Labor  Statistics,  no  state- 
ment of  any  description  has  been  published,  with  the  exception 
of  one  on  November  15,  1911,  on  the  first  nine  months'  working, 
and  that  only  when  it  was  pressed  for  by  Mr.  Pike  Pease  in 


UNEMPLOYMENT  187 

order  that  the  House  of  Commons  might  be  placed  in  possession 
of  some  information  on  the  subject  when  considering  Part  II  of 
the  national  insurance  bill.  It  cannot  be  claimed  that  this 
statement  is  a  very  informing  document,  being  mainly  statistical, 
and  containing  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  report  on  the  experi- 
ence gained.  The  figures  given  in  the  statement  show  that 
during  the  first  nine  months  1,197,843  applications  for  employ- 
ment were  received  on  the  General  Register  (i.e.  excluding  the 
Juvenile  and  Casual  Registers)  which  is  based  on  the  "Adults 
Trade  Table,"  published  in  the  Labor  Gazette  month  by  month; 
414,138  vacancies  were  notified  by  employers,  and  that  of  these 
vacancies  324,270  were  filled.  The  Board  of  Trade's  "Fifteenth 
Abstract  of  Labor  Statistics"  [Cd.  6228]  gives  the  figures  of 
working  (General  Register)  for  the  whole  of  1911  as  follows: 

Applications    received 1,945.763 

Vacancies  notified  by  employers 760,938 

Vacancies  filled  by  exchanges 593.739 

Thus,  during  1911,  for  every  100  applications  for  employment 
vacancies  were  offered  for  39.1,  of  which  the  exchanges  were 
only  capable  .of  filling  30.5,  leaving  69.5  unsatisfied.  At  the  time 
of  writing  (August)  the  Board  of  Trade's  "Sixteenth  Abstract 
of  Labor  Statistics"  had  not  been  published,  so  the  figures  for 
1912  are  not  available  to  the  general  public.  These  figures 
interest  two  sets  of  people  who  are  invited  to  use  the  exchanges, 
and  who,  whether  they  accept  the  invitation  or  not  have  as 
taxpayers  to  pay  for  their  upkeep — two  sets  of  people,  moreover, 
without  whose  joint  cooperation  the  existence  of  the  exchanges 
cannot  be  justified — viz.,  the  working  man  and  the  employer. 
It  is  apparent  that  the  applicants'  chances  of  employment 
through  their  medium  are  not  rosy — 69.5  per  cent  is  a  most 
disappointing  proportion  of  failures.  Employers  are  urged  to 
engage  their  labor  through  the  exchanges  "because  they  haye 
to  pay  for  their  maintenance  whether  they  use  them  or  not,"  and 
"because  they  will  be  saved  the  trouble  and  expense  entailed  by 
newspaper  advertisements,  with  the  additional  advantage  of 
securing  a  picked  selection  of  hands  instead  of  having  crowds 
at  their  gates."  Employers  who  fell  a  prey  to  these  specious 
blandishments  on  the  part  of  the  officials  only  succeeded  in  1911 
in  securing  78  per  cent  of  the  hands  they  applied  for.  This,  not- 
withstanding the  large  surplus  of  workers  in  each  trade  on  the 
exchange  registers!  From  July,  1911,  to  July,  1912,  there  was 


i88  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

a  large  unsatisfied  demand  by  employers  for  workmen  in  the 
shipbuilding  trade.  Yet,  throughout  this  period,  there  was  never 
less  than  7,000  and  usually  more  than  8,000,  shipbuilding  opera- 
tives unemployed,  and  considerable  sums  have  actually  been  paid 
by  way  of  Unemployment  benefit  to  men  in  this  trade.  With 
these  facts  before  us,  it  looks  like  faulty  organization  when  more 
than  one  in  every  five  situations  offered  cannot  be  filled.  Up  to 
the  present  the  confident  expectations  of  Mr.  Churchill,  so  elo- 
quently expressed  on  the  second  reading  of  the  bill,  fall  signally 
short  of  realization. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  advantages  promised  from  the 
system  was  the  increased  mobility  of  labor.  The  exchanges  were 
to  provide  machinery  for  shifting  workpeople  from  districts 
where  the  supply  exceeded  the  demand  to  places  where  a  short- 
age of  workers  in  their  particular  callings  existed.  The  instance 
referred  to  above  with  regard  to  the  shipbuilding  trade  shows 
that  we  are  yet  far  from  realizing  Mr.  Churchill's  hopes.  The 
"Abstract  of  Labor  Statistics"  gives  no  information  regarding 
the  migration  of  workers.  It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that 
the  statement  regarding  the  first  nine  months'  working  gave 
figures  on  this  point  which  were  more  encouraging  than  any 
others  in  the  statement ;  although  fuller  information  would  be 
required  before  any  adequate  estimate  could  be  formed  of  the 
value  of  those  figures.  During  those  nine  months  41,513  cases 
occurred  in  which  persons  were  placed  by  the  exchanges  in 
districts  other  than  those  in  which  they  were  registered.  This 
does  not  necessarily  mean  that  a  change  of  domicile  was  occa- 
sioned in  a  very  large  proportion  of  these  cases.  For  instance, 
it  is  stated  that  these  figures  include  transferences  between  the 
various  London  exchange  areas;  and  they  doubtless  include 
similar  transferences  in  contiguous  provincial  areas.  The  old 
metropolitan  employment  exchanges  effected  3,892  such  trans- 
ferences between  July,  1907,  and  June,  1008,  and  it  must  be 
remembered  that  their  area  was  confined  to  the  administrative 
County  of  London ;  whereas  "London"  under  the  present  scheme 
means  "Greater  London."  So  much  for  the  mobility  of  labor, 
but  when  it  is  a  question  of  mobility  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
capital  possesses  far  greater  fluidity  than  labor.  That  possibly 
explains  partially  why  the  exchanges  have  not  met  with  a 
greater  measure  of  success.  Largely  as  the  result  of  foreign 
tariffs  and  of  recent  legislation,  capital  has  been  leaving  this 
country  in  increasing  volume.  That  capital,  instead  of  employing 


UNEMPLOYMENT  189 

British  labor,  is  providing  a  livelihood  for  the  foreign  worker. 
No  amount  of  labor  exchanges  can  hope  to  solve  the  problem 
of  Unemployment.  When  our  economic  conditions  are  such 
that  capital  can  be  more  profitably  employed  here  than  it  can 
be  abroad  the  labor  exchanges  should  do  a  brisk  business,  and 
might  even  be  regarded  as  worth  the  £200,000  per  annum  which 
Mr.  Churchill  anticipated  they  would  cost  during  the  first  ten 
years.  Taking  this  as  the  actual  amount — and  I  shall  show 
that  it  has  been  largely  exceeded — each  job  filled  during  1911 
(including  the  125,304  casual  jobs)  cost  5s.  6^d.  The  casual 
jobs  must  necessarily  include  many  that  are  only  of  a  few  hours' 
duration,  and  many  of  those  filled  from  the  general  register 
are  known  to  be  for  less  than  a  week.  This  is  a  very  costly 
process  compared  with  the  German  exchanges.  The  average 
cost  per  situation  filled  at  Cologne  and  Diisseldorf  is  4%d., 
at  Frankfurt  6^d.,  at  Freiburg  7d.,  at  Strasburg  8d.,  and  at 
Munich  lod. 

While  on  the  subject  of  cost,  the  question  naturally  arises 
as  to  how  many  of  the  situations  filled  would  remain  unfilled, 
or  would  be  filled  less  rapidly,  if  the  exchanges  did  not  exist. 
It  may  safely  be  assumed  that  under  our  existing  economic  con- 
ditions very  few  fall  into  that  category — so  few,  indeed,  as  to 
afford  little  or  no  justification  for  the  existence  of  such  costly 
machinery.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  a  goodly  number  of 
these  jobs  would  be  filled  with  the  identical  applicants  without 
the  medium  of  this  machinery.  Several  government  departments 
now  take  on  their  hands  through  the  exchanges,  and  the  men 
who  used  to  apply  to  these  departments  direct  are  now  in- 
structed to  register  at  the  exchanges,  which  in  some  cases  are 
actually  provided  with  lists  of  the  names  of  the  men  required. 
The  corporation  of  Glasgow  had  some  such  arrangement  when 
their  distress  committee  maintained  an  exchange  under  the 
Unemployed  Workmen  Act,  1905 ;  and  very  possibly  the  arrange- 
ment has  been  transferred  to  the  new  concern.  There  are 
doubtless  other  instances.  The  post-offices  now  engage  their 
casual  labor  (Christmas  and  otherwise)  through  the  exchanges, 
although  they  have  never  experienced  any  difficulty  in  securing 
all  they  want  many  times  over  without  the  assistance  of  the 
exchanges.  The  post-office  requirements  are  very  exacting,  and 
after  the  exchanges  have  gone  fully  into  the  credentials  of  the 
men  the  whole  work  is  commenced  anew  by  the  post-office. 
This  amounts  to  two  departments  doing  the  work  which  is 


igo  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

capable  of  being  performed — and  more  satisfactorily  performed 
— by  one.  Such  arrangements  have  the  effect  of  swelling  the 
number  of  transactions,  if  they  detract  from  the  value  of  the 
statistics,  but  the  result  is  inevitably  more  officials  and  an  in- 
creasing burden  on  the  taxpayer. 

When  the  act  was  introduced  it  was  urged  that  the  success  of 
similar  institutions  in  Germany  justified  their  establishment  in 
this  country.  It  is  quite  arguable  that  the  economic  system  of 
Germany  is  favorable  to  their  success,  whereas  results  would 
appear  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that  our  existing  fiscal  system 
does  not  supply  the  required  atmosphere  for  their  successful 
growth.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  statistics  of  working  make 
exceedingly  gloomy  reading  after  perusing  the  following  tables: 

Development  of  Principal  German  Exchanges 


A — MALES 


1896 


Exchange 
Berlin     , 

Popula- 
tion 
1905 
,  .  .  .     2,040,090 

Situa- 
tions 
Filled 
10,030 
10,474 
15,653 
9,145 
7,823 
[1,291] 
4,974 
922 
4,818 

nued 

Percent- 
age 
Filled  of 
Situations 
Offered 

97-8 
73-3 
93-5 

96.4 
86.3 
61.6 

1906 

Percent- 
age 
Placed  of 
Applica- 
tions 

77-5 
59-3 
49.1 

70.4 
45-5 
57-6 

Stuttgart 

249,000 

e  OQ  OOO 

Frankfurt 

335,000 

429  ooo 

.  .             74,000 

Exchange 
Berlin     

A  —  MALES  —  Conti 

1901 

Situa- 
tions 
Filled 
54,528 
12,900 
24,358 
16,149 
12,480 

6,014 
1,494 
4,940 

Percent- 
age      Percent- 
Filled  of         age 
Situa-     Placed  of 
tions       Applica- 
Offered       tions 
93.7           66.7 
75.4           48.7 
89.5           56.8 

97-2           38.5 
77.2           40.1 
90.3           32-5 

Situa- 
tions 
Filled 

84,375 
37,893 
29,658 
22,285 
21,805 
25,862 
11,268 
12,171 
9,878 

Percent- 
age 
Filled  of 
Situa- 
tions 
Offered 
76.9 
84.1 
86.3 
82.8 
95-3 
9.40 
74-3 
64.0 
82.9 

Percent- 
age 
Placed  of 
Appli- 
cations 

72-5 
83.1 
42.5 
60.7 
68.9 
50.1 
53-4 
95-4 

Stuttgart     
Munich     

Frankfurt     

Dusseldorf    
Freiburg     
Strassburg 
Nurnberg     .... 

UNEMPLOYMENT 


191 


B— FEMALES 


1906 


1896 

Situations 
Exchange         Filled 

Berlin     1,662 

Stuttgart     2,638 

Munich    9,933 

Frankfurt     ....        534 

Cologne     4,301 

Dusseldorf    (17) 

Freiburg      1,892 

Strassburg     1,004 

Nurnberg    142 


1901 

Situations 
Filled 
2,072 

3,843 

20,815 

5,9i3 

7,784 


Percentage  Percent- 
Filled  of  age  Placed 
Situations     of  Appli- 
Offered 
61.3 
68.1 


cations 


Situations 
Filled 
15,182 

18,427  68.1  92.0 

24,015  63.7  74.1 

15,701  74-4  82.5 

7,359  66.0  93-8 

2,844  72.3  71-4 

2,935                  6,433  67.4  72.4 

1,040                  3,293  Si-3  48.2 

3,193                  4,940  61.2  95.2 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  total  number  of  situations  filled 
during  1906  in  these  nine  exchanges,  serving  a  population  of 
4,381,090,  approximates  very  closely  to  the  figures  for  the  whole 
of  the  United  Kingdom  during  the  first  nine  months  of  1911. 
Even  in  1896  (the  period  of  beginnings  for  the  German  ex- 
changes) the  percentage  of  applicants  placed  never  fell  so  low 
as  that  disclosed  by  the  Board  of  Trade,  while  the  general 
percentage  of  situations  filled  to  situations  offered  was  better. 
It  must  further  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  German  exchanges 
are  not  a  national  system  under  one  control  working  over  one 
large  area.  They  are  mostly  municipal  and  voluntary.  It  is  a 
noteworthy  feature  that  the  Nurnberg  labor  office  had  in  1904, 
1905,  and  1906  to  cope  with  a  demand  for  labor  in  excess  of 
the  supply.  This  holds  good  not  only  of  the  aggregates,  but 
also  of  each  of  the  various  trades  and  occupations  dealt  with, 
with  the  exception  of  general  labor.  Even  there,  however,  the 
number  of  applications  only  exceeds  the  number  of  situations 
offered  in  the  proportion  of  107.4  to  100. 

From  the  outset  it  has  been  the  avowed  object  of  the 
exchanges  to  effect  the  decasualization  of  labor.  This,  under 
given  conditions,  is  an  excellent  object;  but  to  attempt  carrying 
it  into  effect  before  any  provision  has  been  made  for  those  who 
must  inevitably  be  squeezed  out  of  industry  in  the  process  is 
very  little  short  of  a  crime  against  humanity.  No  such  pro- 
vision for  the  victims  of  this  process  has  been  made,  yet  the 
labor  exchanges  have  already  embarked  on  this  project.  With 
the  threatened  approach  of  a  cycle  of  trade  depression  such  a 
course  is  a  menace  to  the  unskilled  ranks  of  industry.  It  is  true 
the  process  is  only  being  carried  out  to  a  limited  extent  yet, 


192  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

but  the  figures  produced  show  that  the  proportion  of  persons 
who  divide  the  various  jobs  filled  from  the  Casual  Register  is 
being  materially  reduced  from  month  to  month.  The  Second 
Annual  Report  of  the  Port  of  London  Authority  contains  a 
significant  statement,  intimating  plainly  that  the  process  is  to  be 
extended.  The  authority  is  empowered  by  clause  68  of  the  Port 
of  London  Act,  1888,  to  establish  labor  exchanges  of  their  own 
in  docks  under  their  control.  The  statement  is  as  follows : 

The  staff  of  the  Authority  at  March  3ist,  1911,  numbered,  13,429. 
as  follows: — Salaried  1,298;  wages — permanent  men  on  the  establishment, 
5,314;  not  established  but  regularly  employed  by  the  week  1,944;  and 
extra  men — daily  average,  4,873,  a  total  of  13,429  persons. 

Several  conferences  have  been  held  with  shipowners  and  other  em- 
ployers of  dock  and  riverside  labour  on  the  subject  of  the  regulation 
of  casual  labour,  but,  unfortunately,  have  not  resulted  in  any  common 
basis  of  agreement  being  arrived  at.  The  Authority,  after  consultation 
with  the  Board  of  Trade,  at  that  Department's  request,  has  submitted 
a  provisional  scheme  for  the  establishment  of  ten  Labour  Exchanges  at 
various  suitable  points  in  the  Authority's  dock  systems,  to  be  controlled 
by  a  committee  upon  which  the  Board  of  Trade  would  be  represented. 

In  conclusion,  the  exchanges  have  been  in  existence  long 
enough  to  prove  the  correctness  of  Mr.  Churchill's  assertion 
that  they  would  not  make  work,  nor,  taken  by  themselves,  prove 
a  cure  for  Unemployment.  What  other  measures  do  the  govern- 
ment propose  taking?  They  have  embarked  on  a  limited  com- 
pulsory scheme  of  unemployment  insurance;  but  labor  exchanges 
plus  unemployment  insurance  will  prove,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
but  quack  remedies  after  all.  The  labor  exchanges  have  served 
a  very  useful  purpose  in  demonstrating  the  futility  of  our 
existing  fiscal  system.  They  have  proved  that  during  a  time 
when  our  trade  returns  are  quoted  by  the  Free  Trade  Union  as 
showing  unbounded  and  unprecedented  prosperity  our  labor  ex- 
changes fail  to  secure  work  for  69.5  out  of  every  100  applicants. 
Quite  apart  from  fiscal  considerations,  it  would  appear  that 
some  measure  of  the  lack  of  success  which  has  dogged  the 
exchanges  is  attributable  to  incompetent  management.  On  De- 
cember 13,  1911,  Mr.  William  Peel  (now  Viscount  Peel),  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  elicited  from  the  president  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  the  information  that  the  London  divisional 
officer  had  approached  the  London  County  Council  Education 
Department  with  a  scheme  for  improving  the  education  of  the 
exchange  officials  (including  managers).  The  curriculum  pro- 
posed contained  some  very  elementary  subjects.  Fortunately 


UNEMPLOYMENT  193 

for  the  London  ratepayers,  the  L.  C.  C.  did  not  entertain 
the  proposition.  Apparently  the  motto  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  is  "First  appoint  your  official:  then  educate  him." 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  fact  remains  that  the  exchanges  have 
proved  to  be  costly  cures  for  Unemployment — cures  which  do 
not  cure.  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  recall  the  pero- 
ration of  Mr.  Bonar  Law's  speech  on  the  second  reading  of  the 
labor  exchanges  bill  on  June  16,  1909: 

As  far  as  one  can  judge,  if  eloquent  speeches  could  cure  Unem- 
ployment, this  government  would  do  it;  if  anything  else  is  necessary  we 
must  await  for  some  other  Government. 

Surely,  a  prophetic  utterance ! 


Nineteenth  Century.    64:331-42.    August,  1908 

A  Workman's  View  of  the  Remedy  for  Unemployment 

James   G.  Hutchinson 

Speaking  as  one  of  the  older  workmen  who  in  my  time  has 
known  what  it  is  to  be  out  of  employment,  and  to  have  to  turn 
out  and  seek  for  work,  in  a  period  of  depression  in  trade,  day 
after  day,  and  week  after  week,  and  fail  to  find  it,  I  can 
certainly  claim  to  have  a  living  interest  in  the  consideration  of 
this  phase  of  the  difficulties  of  a  working  man's  position.  Not 
that  it  can  be  said  there  is  anything  novel  or  unusual  in  the  fact 
that  many  worthy  men  and  women  are  often  laid  idle  through 
want  of  work.  This  has  at  all  times  been  a  regular  occurrence. 
And  it  is  only  now,  when  the  socialist  unrest  by  which  we  are 
surrounded  has  become  more  accentuated,  that  attempts  are 
being  made  to  find  "cures,"  whereby  the  cloud  of  Unemployment 
which  lowers  darkly  over  many  a  workman's  home  can  be 
dispelled,  and  work  and  its  resulting  wages  resumed,  along  with 
the  comfort  and  contentment  they  invariably  bring  in  their  train. 

A  notable  example  of  this  character  that  has  been  strenuously 
brought  to  the  front  just  lately  is  the  establishment  of  labor 
exchanges  as  a  "cure"  for  Unemployment.  Public  offices  where 
employers  could  ascertain  where  bodies  of  workpeople  are 
available  for  carrying  out  work  they  have  in  hand,  and  working 
people  where  their  services  are  required.  It  is  argued  that 


194  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

through  this  medium  workmen  and  employers  could  be  more 
readily  brought  together,  that  the  organization  and  "decasuali- 
zation"  of  labor  would  lead  to  greater  permanence  of  employ- 
ment ;  and  that  by  a  drastic  process  of  weeding  out,  the  "reserves 
of  labor"  would  be  materially  reduced,  while  those  remaining 
would  have — on  the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest — 
become  more  worthy. 

All  this  very  probably  is  true  in  the  main;  but  to  carry  the 
argument  so  far  as  to  believe  that  the  registration  of  the  require- 
ments of  labor,  or  giving  more  facilities  for  its  movement  from 
place  to  place,  is  a  "cure"  for  shortage  of  work,  is,  to  my  mind, 
simply  a  stretch  of  the  imagination,  and  further,  as  the  idea  is 
not  new,  only  another  exemplification  of  the  truth  of  the  old 
adage — that  there  is  really  nothing  new  under  the  sun.  For, 
if  it  is  not  exactly  as  old  as  the  hills,  it  certainly  carries  us 
back  to  the  middle  ages;  to  the  far  times  when  the  craftsmen's 
guilds  and  lodges  of  Freemasons  were  doing  somewhat  analog- 
ous work  in  this  direction  to  that  carried  out  in  our  own  day 
by  the  trade  unions  of  this  country.  Moreover,  without  it  being 
necessary  for  us  to  rely  upon  the  unions  for  information  of 
this  nature,  or  the  labor  bureaus  established  by  many  munici- 
palities; or  even  setting  up  additional  labor  exchanges  as  pro- 
posed, where  a  shilling  advertisement  in  an  evening  paper  would 
serve  the  purpose  quite  as  well;  it  would  be  easy  to  prove 
without  all  this  bureaucratic  routine  that  workmen  generally 
are  not  now  without  accurate  knowledge  of  where  large  works 
are  in  progress  and  employment  likely  to  be  met  with ;  the 
freemasonry  that  obtains  among  all  distinctions  of  labor  prompt- 
ing men  to  tell  each  other  of  any  town  or  place  where  work 
is  to  be  found.  And  my  experience  of  this  feeling  of  comrade- 
ship between  man  and  man  is  that  it  is  displayed  independent 
of  whether  they  are  unionist  or  non-unionist,  esprit  de  corps 
impelling  men  who  are  in  employment  to  give  this  information 
to  their  less  fortunate  brethren.  And,  independent  of  the 
question  of  who  would  have  to  pay  for  their  institution  and 
upholding,  they  appear  to  me  to  be  a  work  of  supererogation,  as 
the  agencies  we  already  have  are  ample  for  the  purpose.  And 
again,  to  elaborate  this  point,  on  which  the  whole  argument 
hinges,  I  have  never  yet,  after  a  life-long  experience  of  the 
vicissitudes  of  labor,  been  confronted  with  the  difficulty  of 
getting  to  know  where  work  was  to  be  obtained,  whenever  or 


UNEMPLOYMENT  195 

wherever  it  was  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  And  further,  I 
believe  the  solution  of  this  problem,  when  it  is  arrived  at,  will 
be  found  to  lie  far  deeper  than  can  be  fathomed  by  any  schemes 
which  can  be  devised  for  the  mobility  of  labor.  To  my  thinking, 
to  put  the  whole  matter  into  a  nutshell,  the  most  radical  cure 
for  Unemployment — shortage  of  work — can  only  be  defined  by 
what  is  virtually  a  self-evident  proposition — that  is,  the  provision 
of  a  fuller  and  better  paid  average  state  of  employment.  And 
I  have  no  doubt  this  remedy,  although  it  may  appear  to  be  a 
fanciful  one,  could  be  easily  achieved  by  wise  economies  on  the 
part  of  capital  and  labor.  Capital  by  according  to  the  workman 
such  a  share  of  the  profits  of  their  combined  management  and 
industry  as  would  impel  him  to  believe  that  he  was  being  fairly 
dealt  with,  and  compel  him  as  a  fair-minded  man  to  render  a 
more  adequate  service  for  his  enhanced  wages.  And  labor  by 
making  a  much  more  sensible  use  of  the  money  which  has  been 
earned,  in  its  expenditure  on  articles  of  utility,  the  production 
of  which  will  in  effect  prove  an  addition  to  the  sum  total  of 
employment. 


Nineteenth  Century.    58: 116-26.     July,  1905 

Organised  Labour  and  the  Unemployed  Problem 

Isaac  H.  Mitchell 

Whatever  may  be  the  object  of  the  government  in  introduc- 
ing the  Unemployed  Workmen  Bill,  whether  for  the  same  reason 
which  induced  the  premier  to  parade  "Old  Age  Pensions"  on 
his  election  card  in  1895,  or  from  a  genuine  recognition  that 
there  is  an  unemployed  problem  and  a  sincere  desire  to  grapple 
with  it,  certain  it  is  that  the  introduction  of  the  bill  marks  the 
entrance  into  the  domain  of  practical  politics  of  this  much- 
debated  question.  The  press  no  longer  dismiss  it  with  ridicule, 
and  the  public  are  at  last  realizing  that  there  is  not  work  for 
everyone  who  wants  work. 

It  has  taken  some  twenty  years  of  very  persistent  agitation 
to  bring  the  people  of  this  country  to  a  recognition  of  this  fact, 
and,  now  that  it  is  recognized,  the  air  is  full  of  Unemployment 
and  its  remedy,  relief  funds,  schemes,  government  reports,  labor 
bureaus,  unemployed  committees,  etc.,  all  no  doubt  doing  more 


ig6  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

or  less  good,  but  calculated  to  rather  confuse  the  inexpert  with 
the  multitude  of  their  proposals. 

Of  those  interested  in  the  question  probably  none  have  more 
to  gain  or  lose  by  the  state  or  municipal  intervention  than  those 
connected  with  the  trade  union  movement.  Not  only  is  it  the 
trade  unionists  upon  whom  Unemployment  most  sorely  presses, 
and  the  extent  of  that  pressure,  even  yet,  is  scarcely  fully  real- 
ised. It  is  general  in  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom.  In 
populous  London  and  sparsely  inhabited  districts  of  Scotland 
and  Ireland  it  has  led  to  congestion  of  the  former  and  the 
depopulation  of  the  latter.  It  is  constantly  with  us,  varying  in 
intensity  between  an  unemployed  army  of  200,000  during  good 
trade  to  upwards  of  1,000,000  in  times  of  exceptional  distress. 

It  is  the  nightmare  which  haunts  every  working  man  and 
woman  anxious  to  maintain  his  or  her  position  as  a  respectable 
member  of  society;  it  is  responsible  for  the  decadence  and 
wreckage  of  more  lives  than  any  other  agency  beyond  the 
individual  workman's  control. 

It  creates  a  demoralising  feeling  of  dependence  which  fre- 
quently leads  either  to  the  sapping  of  the  workman's  best  char- 
acteristics or  to  reckless  revolt.  It  crushes  freedom  and  fosters 
tyranny,  and  daily  compels  the  workman  to  choose  between  a 
sacrifice  of  his  self-respect  and  the  happiness  of  his  wife  and 
family. 

Affecting  the  trade  unionist  as  it  does  in  this  way  it  can 
be  readily  understood  that  great  efforts  have  been  made  by 
organised  labour  to  meet  the  problem,  and  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  for  over  fifty  years  the  trade  union  has  been  the  only 
agency  which  has  sought  to  solve  the  problem.  This  effort  at 
solution  has  largely  shaped  the  whole  trade  union  policy  so  far 
as  working-hours  are  concerned,  both  as  regards  the  taxation 
placed  upon  excessive  overtime  and  the  desire  for  a  shorter 
working  day,  these  demands  being  made  with  a  view  to  so 
regulate  employment  as  to  prevent  periods  of  rush  and  stagna- 
tion. The  great  agitation  of  the  early  nineties  for  an  eight- 
hour  day  was  an  effort  to  obtain  a  shorter  day  not  so  much 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  extra  leisure,  as  because  of  a  belief  that 
shorter  hours  meant  more  regular  employment.  And  even  now 
at  trade  union  and  labour  meetings  reference  to  the  opportunities 
for  study,  for  more  time  for  recreation  which  a  shorter  day 
would  bring,  result  only  in  a  modicum  of  applause,  while  an 


UNEMPLOYMENT  197 

appeal  by  a  speaker  to  the  best  in  the  worker,  a  word  picture 
of  the  horrors  of  Unemployment,  rarely  fails  to  elicit  the 
tumultuous  appreciation  of  a  working  class  audience. 

Added  to  this  the  trade  union  financier,  the  real  backbone 
of  the  labour  movement,  the  scientific  exponent  of  trade  union- 
ism, the  man  who  desires  to  see  his  union's  finance  conducted 
upon  an  actuarial  basis,  sees  with  mixed  feelings  what  is  being 
done  by  trade  unionism  in  its  efforts  to  keep  its  members  free 
from  parochial  relief,  with  pride  at  such  display  of  fellowship, 
and  with  regret  at  its  necessity.  Without  the  aid  of  private 
charity,  parochial  assistance,  or  government  subsidies,  the  trade 
unions  disburse  to  their  members  as  unemployed  benefit  yearly 
sums  ranging  from  igo,768/.  in  the  good  trade  year  of  1899  to 
504,2141.  in  the  bad  trade  year  of  1903,  a  sum  which,  it  is  safe  to 
say,  will  be  increased  by  ioo,ooo/.  when  the  figures  for  1904  are 
to  hand. 

These  yearly  sums  compare  favourably  with  the  total  amount 
which  it  is  proposed  to  raise  under  the  Government  Unemployed 
Workmen  Bill. 

Coming  to  closer  detail,  we  find  that  fourteen  unions  in  the 
metal,  engineering,  and  shipbuilding  trade,  with  an  aggregate 
membership  of  180,688,  spent  in  1894  n°  less  than  258,620?.  on 
unemployed  benefit,  a  sum  equal  to  28^.  ?d.  per  member.  When 
it  is  remembered  that  generally  if  a  member  is  receiving  benefit 
he  is  exempt  from  contributions,  it  will  be  seen  that  in  1894 
the  members  of  these  fourteen  unions  must  have  contributed 
something  approaching  2/.  each  to  maintain  those  who  were  out 
of  work.  One  union,  the  Boilermakers  and  Iron  Shipbuilders, 
had  at  one  period  in  that  year  one-fifth  of  its  total  membership 
unemployed.  Another  union,  the  Amalgamated  Society  of  Engi- 
neers, expended  on  this  benefit  last  year  126,988?.,  or  I?.  6s.  $d. 
per  member,  a  sum  which,  notwithstanding  that  it  is  an  increase 
of  39,739?.  over  1903,  is  no  exceptional  amount,  as  in  1894,  a 
period  of  great  depression,  the  amount  expended  reached 
141,465?.,  or  I?.  17.?.  S^Ad.  per  member;  the  total  amount  expended 
by  this  one  society  since  1851  on  this  benefit  being  no  less  than 
3,022,669?. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  figures  that  the  trade  unionist, 
apart  from  his  ordinary  citizenship  interest  in  this  question  of 
Unemployment,  has  an  even  greater  personal  interest,  inasmuch 
as  Unemployment  is  one  of  the  great  risks  of  his  calling,  and 

16 


ip8  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

also  because  during  a  period  extending  over  half  a  century  the 
trade  unionist  has  valiantly  endeavoured  to  meet  and  provide 
for  this  risk  by  associating  with  his  fellows  in  buildng  up  these 
magnificent  self-help  organisations  and  in  endeavouring  to  meet 
the  difficulty  without  recourse  to  outside  aid.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  notwithstanding  the  magnitude  of  the  task,  had  trade 
unionists  been  met  with  less  opposition  in  their  endeavour  to 
shorten  the  working  day  and  minimize  overtime,  the  present 
unemployed  crisis  would  never  have  arisen. 

Now  that  it  is  necessary  to  do  something  it  might  have  been 
expected  that,  with  fifty  years'  experience,  with  the  great  finan- 
cial responsibility  resting  upon  trade  unions,  with  the  excellent 
machinery  at  their  disposal,  and  with  the  precedent  which  is 
religiously  followed  by  all  governments  when  it  is  proposed  to 
deal  with  matters  which  touch  established  interests,  some  heed 
would  have  been  given  to  what  could  be  done  by  an  extension 
of  the  principles  upon  which  this  work  is  being  so  admirably 
carried  on  by  the  trade  unions,  instead  of  which,  in  every  par- 
ticular, the  proposals  of  the  government  entirely  ignore  them. 
Before  proceeding  with  an  examination  of  these  proposals  of 
the  government  it  may  be  well  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  the 
problem,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  is  not  one  confined 
to  the  unskilled  workers.  Engineers,  carpenters,  textile  opera- 
tives, all  skilled,  semi-skilled,  and  unskilled  workmen  suffer 
under  it.  Any  solution,  therefore,  or  even  any  palliative,  must 
aim  at  relieving  the  position  as  affects  the  skilled  artisan  as 
well  as  the  unskilled  labourer.  It  might  even  be  said  that  the 
unemployed  artisan  suffers  more  acutely  than  his  less  skilled 
unemployed  comrade;  the  latter's  tastes  are  fewer,  his  wants 
more  simple,  and  his  position  in  society  easier  maintained  during 
enforced  idleness  than  the  better-paid  worker.  The  removal 
from  the  relatively  good  neighbourhood,  the  gradual  sale  of 
the  best  pieces  of  furniture,  the  shunning  of  his  former  asso- 
ciates because  of  his  threadbare  clothes,  the  broken  hopes  of 
his  possibly  young  wife  in  being  unable  to  maintain  a  good  and 
well-clad  appearance,  and  the  sight  of  the  wearing  out  of  his 
children's  clothes,  who  in  better  days  were  always  neatly  dressed, 
cuts  to  the  heart  of  a  respectable  artisan  in  a  way  which  has 
got  to  be  experienced  to  be  fully  realised.  Any  attempt,  there- 
fore, to  deal  with  the  problem  must  take  the  skilled  workman 
into  account.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  workmen  do  not 


UNEMPLOYMENT  199 

desire,  nor  is  it  likely  they  will  be  successful  if  employed  at 
occupations  other  than  those  they  usually  follow.  Whether 
looked  upon  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  economy  which 
results  from  placing  men  in  employment  at  which  they  are 
specialists  or  from  the  point  of  view  of  harmonious  working, 
it  is  essential  that  the  engineer  should  be  employed  as  an  engi- 
neer and  not  a  road-sweeper,  the  compositor  as  a  compositor 
and  not  a  navvy.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  it  is  unfair  to  the 
unskilled  worker  to  have  the  competition  increased  by  those 
in  higher  grades  dropping  down  into  his  occupation  when  neces- 
sity compels,  there  is  the  greater  objection  that  skilled  workmen 
object,  and  rightly  so,  to  dropping  out  of  their  grade.  The 
solution  must  therefore  be  one  which  checks  the  labour  glut  in 
all  employment,  and  not  simply  a  provision  which  offers  employ- 
ment for  which  large  numbers  are  totally  unfitted,  and  which, 
even  if  they  were  physically  able  to  undertake  the  work,  would 
tend  to  lower  them  from  the  standard  of  living  and  employment 
they  formerly  followed. 

It  is  in  this  respect  probably  more  than  any  other  that  the 
government  bill  will  prove  the  greatest  failure.  Leaving  aside 
for  the  moment  the  machinery  by  which  the  act  will  be  admin- 
istered, the  bill  proposes  to  assist  workmen  to  find  employment 
in  three  ways: 

ist.  By  the  establishment  of  such  machinery  as  will  bring  employ- 
ers in  want  of  workmen,  and  workmen  in  need  of  employment,  in  touch 
with  each  other. 

2nd.  By  subsidising  employers  who  accept  applicants  recommended  to 
them  by  the  Unemployed  Authority. 

3rd.  By  the  Unemployed  Authority  itself  providing  temporary  work. 
As  the  expenditure  of  moneys  in  this  connection  is  restricted  to  farm 
colonies,  the  inference  is  that  any  temporary  work  provided  will  be  at 
farm  colonies. 

The  first  of  these  proposals  at  once  takes  the  form  of  labour 
bureaus,  registers,  etc.;  the  bill,  in  fact,  expressly  provides  for 
the  establishment  of  such  agencies. 

The  encouragement  given  to  the  formation  of  these  labour 
agencies  is  no  doubt  in  part  due  to  the  success  or  seeming  suc- 
cess which  has  followed  their  establishment  on  the  Continent 
and  in  America,  and  the  tendency  there  is  in  certain  localities  in 
this  country  to  experiment  on  some  such  means  of  bringing 
employer  and  workman  together.  We  have  an  account  of  their 
working  in  America  and  also  on  the  Continent  from  a  Massa- 


200  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

chusetts  report  lately  published,  which  says  that  "thirteen  states 
in  America  have  established  free  employment  offices,  and  their 
reports  show  that  they  have  been  uniformly  successful."  In 
foreign  countries,  the  report  goes  on  to  say,  the  result  seems 
to  have  been  as  successful  as  in  the  United  States. 

In  many  directions,  in  fact,  we  find  this  tendency  to  the 
establishment  of  labour  bureaus.  In  America,  on  the  Continent, 
in  London,  under  the  Mansion  House  scheme,  in  many  of  the 
metropolitan  and  provincial  boroughs  under  the  municipalities, 
the  first  remedy  resorted  to  by  those  who  aim  at  relieving  the 
unemployed  pressure  seems  to  be  the  formation  of  a  bureau. 
Whether  these  bureaus,  when  established,  fulfill  expectations  is 
questionable;  certainly  the  reports  from  many  of  them  are  more 
or  less  disappointing  as  far  as  results  are  concerned,  and  even 
where  they  do  show  an  appreciable  proportion  of  situations 
obtained  to  applications  made  it  is  doubtful  if  this  seeming 
success  represents  any  real  benefit,  as,  had  the  bureau  not  been 
in  existence,  the  possibility  is  that,  by  personal  application  or 
the  ordinary  means  adopted  by  employers  when  labour  is  wanted, 
the  vacancies  recorded  and  filled  from  the  bureau  would  have 
been  filled  without  the  bureau.  The  question  is,  does  the  labour 
bureau  tend  to  the  employment  of  more  workers,  or  does  it 
simply  result  in  one  workman  being  employed  through  his  having 
registered  himself  in  place  of  some  other  workman  who  would 
have  secured  the  position  had  there  been  no  bureau?  If  the 
latter  view  is  the  correct  one,  as  most  trade  unionists  believe, 
the  bureau  is  simply  a  further  multiplication  of  official  machin- 
ery without  any  real  use  so  far  as  the  solution  of  Unemployment 
is  concerned. 

The  labour  bureau  returns  further  show  that  the  applicants 
who  patronise  such  institutions  are  just  that  class  of  worker 
who  has  made  little  or  no  effort  on  his  own  behalf  by  joining  a 
trade  union. 

The  question  of  interest  to  trade  unionists,  and  to  all  who 
prefer  that  such  agencies  should  be  under  the  control  of  the 
workmen  themselves,  is  as  to  how  far  this  tendency  to  establish 
labour  registries  is  likely  to  affect  the  excellent  work  already 
being  done  by  trade  unions.  As  shown  from  the  return  on  page 

201  the  total  average  number  per  month  who  registered  in  twelve 
bureaus  in  1904  was  2,697  men.     These  men  consisted  of  all 
sorts  and  conditions,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent.    The  conclusion 


UNEMPLOYMENT  201 

to  be  drawn,  therefore,  is  that  a  general  atmosphere  of  in- 
efficiency pervades  the  whole  establishment.  Here  there  are 
all  types  of  workers  possessing  all  sorts  of  qualifications  and 
disqualifications,  having  no  common  understanding  as  to  the 
remuneration  which  should  be  sought  and  obtained  before 
employment  is  accepted.  The  result  must  necessarily  be  a  lower- 
ing of  the  trade  union  standard  of  living  and  an  increase  rather 
than  a  decrease  of  competition.  This  danger  will  be  further 
increased  by  the  type  of  employer  induced  to  patronise  these 
agencies.  The  present  method  by  which  workmen  obtain  em- 
ployment is  by  personal  application,  generally  aided  by  a  recom- 
mendation from  one  of  the  workmen  already  in  the  factory  or 
workshop.  If  he  is  a  member  of  a  trade  union  he  knows  exactly 
the  rate  which  should  be  paid  and  the  general  conditions  recog- 
nised in  the  trade,  and  even  if  lacking  in  complete  knowledge  he 
is  quickly  put  into  possession  by  his  fellow  trade  unionists  when 
he  starts  work.  The  employer,  we  may  take  it,  who  is  desirous 
of  recognising  trade  union  conditions  has  no  need  of  a  labour 
bureau.  He  can,  without  the  slightest  difficulty,  obtain  all  the 
labour  he  wants  at  the  shortest  possible  notice,  either  skilled, 
semi-skilled,  or  unskilled.  What  is  true  of  the  upright  em- 
ployer is  equally  true  of  the  organised  workman.  The  trade 
union  organisation  is  now  so  perfect,  the  outlook  for  possible 
vacancies  so  keen,  that  almost  before  the  foreman  has  made  up 
his  mind  about  employing  an  extra  man,  applicants  are 
waylaying  him. 

Occupations  of  Applicants  for  Work  at  Twelve  Bureaus  in  1904 

Average  Number  of 
Applicants  per  Month 

Labourers    (Building  Trade) 126  ^ 

Labourers   (general)    869  j  ^ 

Porters  and  messengers 37* 

Stablemen,  horsemen,  &c 307 

Building  trades  (other  than  labourers) 203 

Clerks  and  warehousemen 160 

Engineering  and  metal   trades 150 

Woodworking     trades 55 

Factory     workers 34 

Printing   and  bookbinding 29 

Other     occupations 393 

2697 

What,    then,    is   the   bureau    for?      Whom   does   it   attract? 
Surely  only  the  employer  who  desires  cheap  workmen,  and  only 


202  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

the  workman  who,  because  of  his  inferiority  or  some  other 
cause,  is  prepared  to  accept  less  than  trade  union  rates. 

The  alternative  to  the  labour  bureau  is  of  course  the  trade 
union  vacant  book  office,  and  the  general  trade  union  machinery 
by  which  every  workman  may  obtain  information,  help,  and 
assistance  of  the  most  reliable  character  in  every  part  of  the 
country  at  the  shortest  possible  notice. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  reproduce  a  portion  of  one  of  the 
monthly  reports  which  are  now  general  in  all  trade  unions  to 
explain  this  really  magnificent  organisation. 

Monthly  Report 

G  signifies  good;  V  G,  very  good;  M,  moderate;  B,  bad;  V  B,  very  bad; 
D,  declining;  S,  strike;  I,  improving. 

Number  of 

Branches  in  State  of  Number  of  Number 

Branches                         each  Town  Trade  I^embers  Unemployed 

Blyth    i  M  80  4 

Boston     i  M  37 

Bradford     3  VB  890  54 

Brighton    i  M  209  i 

Bristol     4  B  645  25 

Bury    2  G  466  8 

Particulars  as  to  sick,  superannuation,  and  other  details  are 
also  given. 

Here  we  have  a  report  published  monthly  which  gives  par- 
ticulars in  this  trade  from  nearly  600  branches  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  from  all  our  colonies,  the  United  States,  and  even 
from  parts  of  France,  Malta,  and  India.  The  engineer  seeking 
employment  sees  at  a  glance  the  hopelessness  of  proceeding  to 
Bradford,  where,  out  of  890  members  in  the  branch,  fifty-four 
are  unemployed.  Added  to  this  information  there  is  the  fact 
that  each  of  the  branch  secretaries  supplies  any  information  any 
member  may  desire. 

Similar  information  is  supplied  by  the  Carpenters  and  Joiners' 
Society,  the  Boilermakers,  Shipwrights,  and  by  nearly  every 
other  society  concerning  every  trade  of  any  importance  in  the 
country,  and  aggregating  something  like  5,000  to  6,000  branches. 

This  method  has  all  the  advantage  of  being  particularised, 
inasmuch  as  each  member  is  classed  as  an  expert  in  his  par- 
ticular branch  of  the  trade.  The  members  are  men  of  character, 
know  their  value,  and,  above  all,  are  doing  something  to  solve 


UNEMPLOYMENT  203 

their  own  problem  without  having  recourse  to  the  patronage  of 
labour  bureau  advocates,  or  incurring  the  danger  of  being 
manipulated  by  cheap  labour  employers. 

The  difference  between  the  two  methods  may  be  summed  up 
as  follows: 

The  labour  bureau  is  a  menace  to  the  standard  of  living, 
inasmuch  as  it  attracts  the  inefficient  worker  and  cheap  labour 
employer.  It  weakens  the  character  of  the  workers  because  it 
removes  from  them  responsibility  for  organisation.  It  is  entirely 
unnecessary. 

The  trade  union  method  upholds  the  standard  of  living 
because  all  members  agree  only  to  accept  employment  on  recog- 
nised conditions. 

It  attracts  the  efficient  workman  and  the  fair  employer.  It 
strengthens  the  character  of  the  workman  because  it  makes  him 
responsible  for  the  organisation  of  his  own  trade. 

The  present  government  have  become  so  accustomed  to  meet 
difficulties  by  recourse  to  "doles" — the  clergy,  the  agriculturist, 
the  shipowner,  and  the  banana  importer  have  each  had  a  turn — 
that  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  some  such  proposal  in  their  bill. 
It  is  true  that  Mr.  Gerald  Balfour  has  explained  that  the  pro- 
posal does  not  mean  that  ordinary  employers  will  be  subsidised, 
and  we  may  take  it  that  only  such  work  as  that  undertaken  by 
the  Salvation  Army  at  Hadleigh  will  receive  assistance  in  this 
way.  The  system,  however,  whether  in  ordinary  employment  or 
in  special  employment,  is  wholly  bad ;  no  dividing  line  can  be 
drawn  between  work  which  would  be  done  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances and  useful  work  which  is  undertaken  to  find  work- 
men employment,  but  which  without  subsidies  could  not  be 
undertaken.  The  tendency  is  that  work  which  would  have  to  be 
done  sooner  or  later  and  paid  for  at  the  ordinary  rate  is  simply 
undertaken  sooner,  and  instead  of  costing  the  ordinary  price  a 
subsidy  is  received  and  the  work  obtained  at  a  cheap  rate. 

A  shrewd  employer  or  an  enterprising  capitalist,  American 
or  otherwise,  who  desires  to  be  advertised  will  easily  be  able  to 
obtain  his  advertisement  and  probably  have  his  work  done 
cheaply  at  the  same  time.  Everyone  admires  the  .magnificent 
work  undertaken  by  Mr.  Edward  Cadbury  at  Bournville,  Mr. 
Joseph  Rowntree  at  the  model  village  at  York,  and  Mr.  Lever 
at  Port  Sunlight,  but  if,  for  the  trade  union  conditions  under 
which  the  villages  at  Bournville,  York,  and  Port  Sunlight  were 


204  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

built,  there  is  to  be  substituted  a  subsidised  form  of  employment 
which  will  enable  philanthropy  to  be  exercised  at  cheap  rates,  an 
opinion  will  rapidly  grow  up  against  the  modern  "rate-in-aid-of- 
wages  system."  The  argument,  no  doubt,  will  be  that  only 
employment  of  the  most  unskilled  class  will  be  subsidised,  and 
in  that  case  we  may  conclude  that  the  proposal  will  do  little 
to  solve  or  relieve  the  problem  of  Unemployment.  The  possi- 
bilities of  its  being  abused  are,  however,  none  the  less  dangerous 
because  it  may  be  confined  to  the  cheapest  labour. 

The  third  method  is  by  the  employment  authority  itself 
providing  temporary  work. 

Based  as  it  has  been  upon  the  Mansion  House  model  it  is 
easily  seen  how  this  will  operate.  The  moneys  raised  by  rate 
can  only  be  applied  to  farm  colony  work,  and  as  a  last  resource 
possibly  this  method  of  finding  employment  is  aiming  in  the 
right  direction,  but  very  few  workmen  indeed  will  avail  them- 
selves of  such  a  method.  It  will  only  be  when  men  are  in 
desperate  plight  that  they  will  leave  their  home,  wife,  and  family, 
and  go  miles  to  work  for  a  less  sum  than  is  ordinarily  paid  for 
such  labour  in  the  district.  Even  if  the  "lesser  weekly  sum" 
proviso  has  only  reference  to  a  shorter  working  week  and  not  a 
smaller  rate  per  hour,  is  it  at  all  likely  that  men,  even  unskilled 
labourers  working  in  London,  will  go  to  any  farm  colony  to 
work  for  the  rate  which  prevails  in  that  district  when  we  remem- 
ber that  14,  12,  and  even  as  low  as  10  shillings  per  week  is 
paid  in  some  agricultural  centres? 

When  workmen  demand  that  something  should  be  done  to 
solve  the  unemployed  problem,  they  do  not  mean  that  they  are 
going  to  accept  work  away  from  their  homes  at  'less  than  that 
which  would  under  ordinary  circumstances  be  earned  by  an 
unskilled  labourer  for  a  full  week's  work.'  This  is  no  solution. 
Even  unskilled  labourers  will  reject  the  proposal  with  ridicule, 
and  to  offer  clerks,  shopmen,  carpenters,  engineers,  etc.,  such 
work  is  to  demonstrate  a  total  want  of  knowledge  of  the  feeling 
behind  this  unemployed  agitation.  What  is  desired  is  for  each 
specialised  workman  to  secure  employment  at  that  work  at  which 
he  is  a  specialist,  and  this  specialisation  operates  from  the 
highly  skilled  scientific  mechanic  right  down  to  the  builder's 
labourer  and  the  gas  stoker.  Any  proposal  which  places  the 
workman  at  labour  with  which  he  is  unacquainted  is  economically 
wasteful,  and  will  be  accepted  as  a  makeshift,  with  the  accom- 
panying demoralising  effects  consequent  upon  such  work. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  205 

The  growing  opinion  amongst  trade  unionists  is  a  doubt  as 
to  whether  legislation  will  do  very  much  to  solve  the  problem. 
Recent  consideration  of  the  subject  by  the  leading  labour  leaders 
of  the  country  points  rather  to  administration  than  to  legislation. 
They  recognize  that,  whether  it  will  always  be  a  feature  of  trade 
and  industry  or  not,  certainly  at  present  great  fluctuations  take 
place  in  the  demand  for  labour.  During  the  last  twenty-five  years 
this  country  has  seen  depressions  which  became  most  acute 
about  the  middle  of  each  decade,  1885,  1894,  and  now  again  in 
1905.  Similarly  in  1882,  1890,  and  1899  we  had  periods  of  excep- 
tionally good  trade.  The  obvious  necessity  to  meet  these  fluctu- 
ations is  that  labour  should  be  elastic;  it  certainly  is  elastic, 
but  this  elasticity  takes  the  form  of  the  employees  in  good 
times  working  at  high-pressure  speed  for  long  hours  and  the 
enforced  total  idleness  of  large  numbers  in  bad  times.  Surely 
the  better  form  of  elasticity  would  be  to  make  the  hours  of 
labour  vary  and  elastic  rather  than  that  the  number  of  men 
employed  should  vary  so  largely.  Many  employers,  to  their  credit, 
adopt  this  method,  and  while  it  may  be  true  that  in  many 
trades  such  a  regulation  of  working  hours  would  not  be  possible, 
it  is  equally  true  that  in  many  trades  such  a  regulation  is  possible 
with  beneficial  results  to  all  concerned.  The  history  of  employ- 
ment under  the  direct  supervision  of  the  government  has,  how- 
ever, during  these  last  five  years,  been  a  record  of  gross  aggra- 
vation of  the  difficulties  of  employment.  In  1900-1  frantic 
efforts  were  made  in  every  arsenal  and  government  factory  in 
the  country  to  obtain  men.  An  artificial  demand  was  set  up  as 
a  result  of  the  war.  Thousands  of  men  were  engaged,  only  to 
be  ruthlessly  discharged  in  1903-4.  At  Woolwich  Arsenal, 
Enfield  Small  Arms  Factory,  and  all  the  dockyards,  the  cry  has, 
during  the  last  two  years,  been  "Reduce  and  economise."  The 
stupidity  of  the  extravagant  expenditure  and  reckless  production 
of  the  two  former  years  has  had  to  be  met  by  an  equal  stupidity 
of  miserly  cheeseparing  in  the  two  latter. 

The  facilities  for  production  must  necessarily  be  such  that 
sudden  demands  for  labour  can  be  met,  but  up  to  now  the  only 
elastic  part  of  the  system  has  been  human  labour,  and  the  limits 
of  that  elasticity  have  been,  on  the  one  hand,  continuous  work 
frequently  aided  by  vicious  stimulants  until  exhausted  nature 
has  called  a  halt,  and,  on  the  other,  the  total  absence  of  employ- 
ment, with  all  its  accompanying  horrors  of  ill-fed  children  and 
demoralised  parents. 


206  UNEMPLOYMENT 

Trade  unionists  neither  believe  in  excessive  work  nor  its  total 
absence ;  both  are  degrading,  both  vicious ;  they  believe  a  healthy 
mean  can  be  obtained  and  maintained  if  the  employers  display  a 
businesslike  aptitude  in  carrying  on  their  business.  Up  to  now, 
all  mistakes  and  all  mismanagement  have  been  met  by  resort 
to  labour's  elasticity.  If  war  is  declared  without  the  country 
being  prepared,  labour  is  called  upon  to  work  all  hours.  If 
expenditure  has  been  exceeded,  labour  is  discharged  in  thou- 
sands. 

What  is  true  of  governmental  captains  of  industry  is  true 
of  most  public  bodies  and  private  firms.  Ability  to  regulate  in 
this  manner  should  be  part  of  every  industrial  captain's  equip- 
ment. 

It  is  readily  admitted  that,  notwithstanding  such  regulation, 
fluctuations  will  take  place.  To  meet  these  fluctuations  nothing 
seems  more  sane  than  that,  on  the  first  sign  of  depression,  works 
of  public  utility  should  be  proceeded  with.  The  government 
and  all  public  bodies  have  always  an  enormous  amount  of  work 
waiting  to  be  done.  Harbour  works,  government  buildings,  and 
repairs  of  all  kinds  should  be  proceeded  with  when  times  are 
bad,  and  as  good  times  return  there  could  be  a  slackening  off 
of  such  work.  One  of  the  most  prolific  causes  of  Unemployment 
is  the  practice  followed  by  all  contractors,  public  and  private,  of 
refraining  from  putting  work  in  hand  during  the  winter  months. 
In  every  business,  indoor  or  outdoor,  there  is  a  slackening  off  in 
winter.  Bad  light  and  weather  both  add  largely  to  cost  of 
production.  But  what  can  workmen  do?  They  do  not  receive 
sufficient  during  summer  to  tide  them  over  winter,  and  it  would 
surely  be  cheaper  and  better  for  public  authorities  to  spend 
money  for  extra  labour  cost  in  winter  than  spend  large  sums  on 
extra  poor  law  costs,  or  even  on  farm  colony  work. 

Notwithstanding  regulation,  notwithstanding  an  intelligent 
anticipation  of  bad  times  and  the  pushing  forward  of  public 
works,  it  is  conceivable  that  still  there  would  be  those  wanting 
work  who  could  not  obtain  it.  To  supply  this  need  the  govern- 
ment bill  might  be  useful,  but  without  the  better  regulation  of 
present  employment,  which  would  aim  at  making  the  hours  of 
labour,  and  not  the  number  employed,  the  elastic  part  of  our 
productive  system,  the  Government  Unemployed  Workmen  Bill 
will  be  as  disappointing  in  its  results  as  its  machinery  is  likely 
to  prove  dangerous  in  its  operation. 


WORK  AFFIRMATIVE 


Scientific  American.  60:24679-80.  July  8,  1915 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  on  "The  Cause  and  Remedy  for 
Unemployment" 

Readers  will  be  interested  in  the  address  delivered  before 
the  Social  and  Political  Education  League  at  University  College 
on  some  social  reforms  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  The  necessary 
precursor  of  wise  and  effectual  reform,  said  Sir  Oliver,  was 
knowledge — knowledge  both  wide  and  accurate  of  the  state  of 
society  and  of  the  conditions  of  action.  To  this  end  a  long- 
continued  and  devoted  study  of  the  human  problem  as  a  branch 
of  science  was  as  necessary  as  was  the  intuitive  and  energetic 
zeal  of  the  reformer.  The  art  of  government  would  not  con- 
tinue to  be  the  one  department  of  activity  for  which  no  training 
was  supposed  to  be  necessary.  It  seemed  to  him  that  many 
eminent  humanists  at  the  present  time  discriminated  too  com- 
pletely between  the  study  of  man  and  the  study  of  nature.  The 
essential  truth  that  we  had  to  learn  and  grow  accustomed  to  was 
that  man  was  a  part  of  nature,  and  the  study  of  man  divorced 
from  the  study  of  nature  was  bound  to  be  one-sided  and  partial 
and  incomplete. 

After  referring  to  the  potency  of  education  in  improving  the 
conditions  of  life,  he  expressed  the  view  that  the  laws  of  in- 
heritance would  have  to  be  considered  some  day.  The  idea  that 
people  might  live  without  working,  and  yet  without  disgrace 
was  responsible  for  much  incompetence  and  some  misery.  Tt 
was  good  neither  for  the  youth  brought  up  in  the  idea  nor  for 
those  whose  labor  had  to  supply  him  with  what  he  demanded. 
All  should  have  leisure,  but  none  should  be  completely  idle  on 
pain  of  starvation  or  the  disciplinary  drill  of  prison. 

But  was  there  any  class  on  which  the  hand  of  reform  could 
be  at  once  laid?  He  answered  that  there  were  two  such  classes. 

He  contended  that  hitherto  in  these  two  directions  society 
had  by  no  means  risen  to  a  sense  of  its  power  and  its  respon- 
sibility. It  was  too  imbued  with  the  idea  of  punishment,  too 


208  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

faithless  about  efforts  toward  reformation  and  improvement. 
Paupers  were  the  patients  of  society.  In  their  present  state  they 
were  useless,  and  they  were  very  likely  deserving  of  blame. 
Anyway,  they  had  failed  and  they  required  help.  They  must  be 
shown  how  to  live,  how  to  work,  how  to  develop  their  faculties. 
To  put  them  to  a  hopeless  task,  like  oakum-picking  or  breaking 
stones,  was  to  disgust  them  with  labor.  It  was  to  give  them 
things  to  do  for  which  a  machine  was  the  proper  agent.  Why 
should  society  set  upon  them  and  try  to  crush  them  into  hope- 
lessness and  rebellion?  That  was  not  the  object  for  which  we 
paid  poor-rates.  By  placing  the  people  on  unreclaimed  or  un- 
fertile land  calling  out  for  labor,  under  skilled  supervision,  they 
might,  he  believed,  be  made  self-supporting  before  long.  What- 
ever might  be  the  case  with  paupers,  concerning  the  criminal 
class  he  was  perfectly  certain  we  were  doing  wrong.  We  were 
seeking  to  punish,  not  to  educate,  stimulate,  reform.  Prisoners 
should  be  put  under  industrial  conditions,  and  should  be  organ- 
ized into  useful  members  of  society.  Unless  they  were  reformed 
they  should  not  be  set  free.  It  was  stupid  to  release  them  in 
order  knowingly  to  reinforce  the  ranks  of  the  criminal  classes. 
Prisons  should  be  reformatories,  and  sentences  might  be  in- 
definite and  contingent  on  reform. 

But  in  order  to  be  effective  reformatories  they  must  be 
humanely  and  wisely  administered.  If  any  trade  union  objected 
to  the  utilization  of  prison  labor,  and  the  production  of  useful 
commodities  even  for  internal  consumption,  it  should  be  made 
clear  to  them  that  the  object  of  prison  discipline  was  not,  pri- 
marily, the  manufacture  of  goods,  but  the  reform  and  manu- 
facture of  human  beings  from  the  refuse  of  humanity — a  kind  of 
shoddy  for  the  first  time  worthy  of  Divine  manufacture.  Nor 
did  he  believe  that  the  trade  union  leaders  would  object  to  this 
if  it  were  properly  presented  to  them.  To  say  that  the  army 
of  workers  was  already  overstocked  was  no  answer.  If  it  were, 
it  was  equivalent  to  throwing  up  the  sponge  and  admitting  that 
this  planet  could  not  support  its  present  population.  It  was 
absurd  to  suppose  that.  It  would  be  time  enough  to  throw  up 
the  sponge  in  despair  when  a  few  centuries  of  really  intelligent 
study  and  unselfish  legislation  had  been  tried. 

A  beginning  of  the  new  state  of  things  was  being  made. 
Municipal  and  socialistic  enterprises  were  in  the  air.  They  were 
running  the  gauntlet  of  criticism  and  suspicion,  as  all  things  had 


UNEMPLOYMENT  209 

to  do  before  they  were  purged  of  their  dross.  He  maintained 
that  never  before  was  the  outlook  so  hopeful ;  never  were  all 
classes  so  permeated  by  the  spirit — not  the  phrases,  but  the 
essential  spirit — of  brotherhood  and  cooperation ;  never  was  there 
such  universal  recognition  of  the  beauty  of  the  spirit  of  real 
and  vital  Christianity,  far  above  the  differences  and  dogmas  of 
the  sects.  With  the  extension  of  local  self-government  legisla- 
tive progress  might  be  more  rapid.  The  best  men  would  throw 
themselves  into  public  service  with  more  heart  and  energy  than 
now,  when,  in  an  overloaded  and  centralized  assembly,  progress 
was  so  low  and  the  machinery  so  old  and  cumbersome  that  the 
output  was  quite  incomparable  with  the  time  and  labor  involved 
in  getting  it  through. 


Arena.    27:87-93.    January,  1902 
A  Problem  for  True  Statesmanship.     B.   O.  Flower 

History  is  usually  helpful  with  its  suggestions,  even  when  we 
are  in  the  presence  of  new  problems  and  issues  that  demand 
more  enlightened  treatment  than  has  been  accorded  in  the  past; 
and  though  few  have  been  the  intelligent  and  sympathetic 
attempts  made  by  government  officials  and  those  in  authority  to 
transform  the  beggar  and  the  tramp  into  self-respecting  citizens, 
there  are,  happily,  signal  instances  where  the  heart  and  brain 
have  labored  with  most  encouraging  results  to  abate  an  evil 
that  debases  the  individual  and  menaces  the  state.  Two  notable 
examples,  one  in  ancient  times  and  the  other  of  comparatively 
recent  date,  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  entire  practicability  of 
well-directed  efforts  aimed  at  overcoming  uninvited  poverty  and 
exalting  the  state  by  rescuing  and  helping  to  independence  those 
who  have  fallen  under  the  wheel. 

When  the  Grecian  statesman,  Pisistratus,  came  into  author- 
ity, he  found  the  streets  of  Athens  thronged  with  beggars 
clamoring  for  bread.  On  being  asked  why  they  were  not  at 
work,  they  replied  that  they  could  find  no  employment.  The 
statesman  rightly  concluded  that  one  of  the  greatest  dangers  that 
could  threaten  a  state  lay  in  a  large  and  growing  class  of 
wretched,  degraded,  and  suffering  poor,  and  he  at  once  sought 
a  remedy  to  meet  the  exigencies  that  confronted  him. 

Beyond  the  limits  of  Athens  was  ample  land  which  only 


210  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

awaited  the  hand  of  careful  industry  in  order  to  yield  bountiful 
harvests  of  real  wealth  for  the  toilers  and  sustenance  for  the 
community.  This  land  Pisistratus  had  at  once  parceled  into  lots 
sufficiently  large  for  one  man,  or  a  family,  as  the  case  might 
be,  properly  to  cultivate.  The  beggars  were  then  assigned  por- 
tions of  the  land  and  were  supplied  with  seeds  to  plant  and  tools 
and  animals  necessary  for  the  cultivation  of  the  soil.  After  this 
was  done  and  every  one  had  been  given  an  opportunity  to  earn 
an  honest  livelihood,  the  ruler  promulgated  a  decree  prohibiting 
able-bodied  persons  from  begging,  and  attaching  a  severe  penalty 
for  disregarding  the  mandate.  The  wholesome  results  of  the 
measure  were  soon  evident.  The  erstwhile  beggars  became 
thrifty,  independent  citizens,  who  greatly  increased  the  national 
wealth.  Indeed,  so  marked  was  the  transformation  that  all 
members  of  society  felt  the  benefits,  and  the  rule  of  the  states- 
man was  long  known  as  the  golden  age  of  Pisistratus. 

In  modern  times  a  still  more  striking  and  suggestive  experi- 
ment resulted  in  a  splendid  success,  with  material  that  was 
anything  but  promising.  The  philanthropist  whose  wise  and 
eminently  practical  work  entitles  his  memory  to  the  lasting  honor 
and  love  of  all  friends  of  humanity  was  an  American  by  birth, 
Benjamin  Thompson  by  name,  though  better  known  to  history 
under  the  title  of  Count  Rumford,  later  bestowed  upon  him  by 
the  King  of  England.  At  the  breaking  out  of  the  revolutionary 
war  Mr.  Thompson  sided  with  the  loyalists  and  was  proscribed. 
Later  he  went  to  England,  where  he  was  employed  in  an  impor- 
tant position  in  the  Colonial  Office  until  the  close  of  the  war. 
For  some  time  prior  to  leaving  America  he  had  devoted  much 
time  to  studies  in  physical  science,  and  in  London  he  took  a 
leading  place  among  the  savants  of  Great  Britain,  becoming  A 
pioneer  advocate  of  the  vibratory  theory  of  heat  and  contributing 
materially  to  the  general  interest  in  physical  science,  which  at 
that  time  was  girding  itself  for  the  greatest  onward  march  in 
the  history  of  civilization.  In  1782  he  was  knighted  by  the  King 
of  England  as  Benjamin  Thompson,  Count  of  Rumford.  He 
was  also  elected  a  fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  of  England. 
Later  when  in  Munich  the  reigning  Duke  of  Bavaria,  attracted 
by  his  superior  executive  ability,  employed  him  to  direct  some 
important  military  affairs  and  introduce  a  new  system  of  order 
among  the  soldiers.  These  services  were  so  successfully  per- 
formed that  the  monarch  appealed  to  him  to  aid  in  devising  a 


UNEMPLOYMENT  an 

practical  plan  for  ridding  Munich  of  its  great  army  of  profes- 
sional beggars,  who  at  that  time  swarmed  the  streets  and  whose 
numbers  reached  up  into  the  thousands,  most  of  whom,  it  was 
said,  "had  been  used  to  living  in  the  most  miserable  hovels,  in 
the  midst  of  vermin  and  every  kind  of  filthiness,  or  to  sleep  in 
the  streets  and  under  the  hedges,  half  naked  and  exposed  to  all 
the  inclemencies  of  the  seasons.  Not  only  were  the  greater 
number  unacquainted  with  all  kinds  of  work — having  been  bred 
up  from  infancy  in  the  profession  of  begging — but  they  had  the 
most  insuperable  aversion  to  honest  labor,  and  had  been  so  long 
familiarized  with  every  crime  that  they  had  become  perfectly 
callous  to  all  sense  of  shame  and  remorse." 

Count  Rumford  gave  the  subject  his  earnest  consideration 
and  accepted  the  serious  trust.  He  immediately  set  about  fitting 
up  great  industrial  workshops  and  factories,  where  men,  women, 
and  children  could  be  given  immediate  employment  in  simple 
and  useful  manufactures  and  where  they  could  be  taught  weav- 
ing and  other  important  crafts  under  skilful  instructors.  These 
industrial  shops  were  provided  with  ample  accommodations  for 
lodging  and  feeding  the  poor,  under  conditions  calculated  to 
promote  comfort  and  contentment. 

When  all  preliminary  work  was  finished,  Count  Rumford  set 
January  I,  1790,  as  the  day  of  the  inauguration  of  his  campaign 
against  mendicancy  in  Munich.  The  civil  and  military  bodies 
cooperated  with  him,  and  when  all  was  ready  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  the  city  and  the  count  started  down  the  street.  Almost 
immediately  they  were  importuned  for  alms.  Gently  laying  his 
hand  on  the  shoulder  of  the  beggar  Count  Rumford  arrested 
the  man,  informing  him  that  henceforth  no  begging  would  be 
permitted  in  Munich,  but  that  if  he  needed  assistance  his  wants 
should  be  provided  for.  This  was  the  signal  for  inaugurating 
the  movement,  and  in  a  few  hours  not  a  beggar  could  be  found 
in  the  streets  of  the  city.  Those  apprehended  were  taken  to  the 
town  hall  and  after  having  their  names  and  addresses  registered 
they  were  instructed  to  apply  at  the  industrial  shops  on  the 
following  day,  where  they  would  find  warm,  comfortable  rooms, 
plenty  of  food,  and  work  for  all  in  a  condition  to  labor. 

In  the  city  of  Munich,  with  a  population  at  that  time  not 
exceeding  60,000,  more  than  2,500  sought  and  found  an  asylum 
in  these  great  industrial  shops  within  a  week.  At  first  there  was 
necessarily  some  confusion,  and  we  may  readily  imagine  that 


212  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

discontented  ones  were  not  wanting;  but  the  management  united 
firmness  with  great  kindness  and  patience,  ever  keeping  in  view 
the  double  purpose  of  the  Count— the  reclamation  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  best  interests  of  the  state. 

Of  the  result  Count  Rumford  in  his  autobiography,  written 
years  after  the  experiment  had  become  a  splendid  success, 
observes : 

The  awkwardness  of  these  poor  creatures  when  first  taken  from  the 
streets  as  beggars  and  put  to  work  may  easily  be  conceived;  but  the 
facility  with  which  they  acquired  address  in  the  various  manufactures 
in  which  they  were  employed  was  very  remarkable  and  much  exceeded 
all  expectation. 

But  what  was  quite  surprising  and  at  the  same  time  interesting  in 
the  highest  degree  was  the  apparent  and  rapid  change  produced  in  their 
manners,  in  their  general  behavior,  and  even  in  the  very  air  of  their 
countenances  upon  being  a  little  accustomed  to  their  new  situation. 

The  kind  usage  they  met  with  and  the  comforts  they  enjoyed  seemed 
to  have  softened  their  hearts  and  awakened  in  them  sentiments  as  new 
and  surprising  to  themselves  as  they  were  interesting  to  those  about 
them. 

The  melancholy  gloom  of  misery  and  the  air  of  uneasiness  and  em- 
barrassment disappeared  by  degrees  from  their  countenances,  and  were 
succeeded  by  a  timid  dawn  of  cheerfulness  rendered  most  exquisitely 
interesting  by  a  certain  mixture  of  silent  gratitude  which  no  language  can 
describe. 

The  spinning  halls  by  degrees  were  filled  with  the  most  interesting 
little  groups  of  industrious  families,  who  vied  with  each  other  in  dili- 
gence and  address,  and  who  displayed  a  scene  at  once  the  most  busy 
and  the  most  cheerful  that  can  be  imagined. 

Whether  it  was  that  those  who  saw  them  compared  their  present 
situation  with  the  state  of  misery  and  wretchedness  from  which  they 
had  been  taken,  or  whether  it  was  the  joy  and  exultation  which  were 
expressed  in  the  countenances  of  the  poor  parents  in  contemplating  their 
children  all  busily  employed  about  them,  I  know  not,  but  certain  it  is 
that  few  strangers  who  visited  the  establishment  came  out  of  these  halls 
without  being  affected. 

Those  in  whom  the  finer  sentiments  of  life  have  given  place 
to  heartless  cynicism,  and  whose  moral  natures  seem  to  be 
atrophied,  are  wont  to  sneer  at  any  attempt  to  reform  the 
morals  of  persons  who  have  long  dwelt  in  the  social  cellar. 
Yet  Count  Rumford's  experience  flatly  contradicts  their  pessi- 
mistic assertions  and  assumptions.  On  this  point,  and  with 
the  positive  success  of  his  experiment  in  the  full  view  of  the 
world,  he  thus  wrote  concerning  the  moral  uplift  experienced 
by  the  beneficiaries  of  his  work: 

In  this  I  succeeded.  For  the  proof  of  this  fact  I  appeal  to  the  flour- 
ishing state  of  the  different  manufactories  in  which  these  poor  people 


UNEMPLOYMENT  213 

are  now  employed;  to  their  orderly  and  peacable  demeanor;  to  their 
cheerfulness;  to  their  industry;  to  their  desire  to  excel,  which  manifests 
itself  among  them  on  all  occasions;  and  to  the  very  air  of  their  counte- 
nances. 

Strangers  who  go  to  this  institution  (and  there  are  very  few  who 
pass  through  Munich  who  do  not  take  that  trouble)  cannot  sufficiently 
express  their  surprise  at  the  air  of  happiness  and  contentment  which 
reigns  throughout  every  part  of  this  extensive  establishment;  and  can 
hardly  be  persuaded  that,  among  those  they  see  so  cheerily  engaged  in 
that  interesting  scene  of  industry,  by  far  the  greater  part  were,  five 
years  ago,  the  most  miserable  and  most  worthless  of  beings — common 
beggars  on  the  street. 

Under  the  Count's  experiment  each  person  was  remunerated 
for  his  labor,  while  all  who  excelled  were  praised  and  encour- 
aged in  various  ways  for  the  proficiency  shown  in  their  work. 
They  were  treated  as  self-respecting  men  and  women,  and  the 
divine  in  their  souls  rose  to  meet  the  expectations  of  their  new- 
found benefactor.  The  love  and  gratitude  which  these  poor 
people  felt  for  the  Count  were  touchingly  expressed  on  many 
occasions.  Once,  when  it  was  reported  that  he  was  dying, 
hundreds  of  these  people  filed  forth  en  masse  and  journeyed  to 
the  cathedral  church  to  offer  prayers  for  this  Protestant,  of  a 
different  nationality  and  tongue,  who  had  proved  their  savior. 
The  moral  victory  won,  which  was  of  inestimable  value  to 
society,  was  supplemented  by  a  large  monetary  return  which 
the  municipality  enjoyed  from  the  experiment,  as  we  are  in- 
formed that  "notwithstanding  all  the  disadvantages  under  which 
it  labored  in  its  infant  state,  the  net  profit  arising  from  it  during 
the  first  six  years  of  its  existence  amounted  to  above  100,000 
florins,  after  the  expenses  of  every  kind,  salaries,  wages,  repairs, 
etc.,  had  been  deducted ;  and,  in  consequence  of  the  augmentation 
of  the  demand  for  clothing  for  the  troops,  business  increased  so 
much  that  the  amount  of  the  orders  received  and  executed  in 
one  year  did  not  fall  much  short  of  half  a  million  florins." 

These  examples  afford  helpful  hints  from  well-authenticated 
history,  which  clearly  prove  what  may  be  done.  With  us  there 
are  boundless  resources,  and  with  firm,  wise,  and  above  all 
loving  guidance  a  well-conducted  program  of  progress  might 
easily  be  inaugurated  that  would  obliterate  uninvited  poverty 
and  reduce  all  want  to  a  minimum;  while  the  state  and  civiliza- 
tion would  gain  immensely  through  ennobled  manhood  and  the 
enormous  increase  of  wealth  products  that  would  flow  from 
giving  direction  to  the  now  nerveless  hand  of  poverty. 

17 


214  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

Survey.    33:439-40.    January  23,  1915 

A  National  Employment  Reserve  for  Lean  Years  and  Seasons. 
N.  I.  Stone 

No  measure  can  be  regarded  as  an  adequate  solution  of  the 
difficulty  which  fails  to  provide  productive  work  for  men  and 
women  thrown  into  involuntary  idleness  and  thus  help  all  able- 
bodied  members  of  society  to  maintain  their  accustomed  stand- 
ard of  life  without  their  becoming  at  the  same  time  a  charge 
upon  the  public  treasury  or  upon  the  charitably  inclined. 

Such  a  desideratum  can  be  provided  solely  by  a  well  main- 
tained system  of  public  works  so  organized  as  to  have  the 
elasticity  of  our  newly  .devised  federal  banking  reserve,  by  being 
capable  of  quickly  absorbing  the  surplus  labor  of  the  country 
released  by  the  seasonal  or  sporadic  contractions  of  industry  and 
of  contracting  when  the  needs  of  expanding  business  call  for  the 
reserve  army  of  labor. 

The  suggestion  as  to  the  use  of  public  works  as  a  means  of 
relieving  acute  Unemployment  is  not  new.  But  so  far  as  the 
writer  is  aware,  no  scheme  has  ever  been  submitted  aiming  at 
a  comprehensive,  nation-wide,  permanent,  regularly  operating, 
elastic  system  for  absorbing  and  releasing  the  labor  supply  of 
the  country  in  the  same  manner  as  the  federal  reserve  system 
has  been  devised  to  absorb  superfluous  idle  funds  when  not 
required  by  the  industries  and  commerce  of  the  country  and  for 
supplying  adequate  funds  when  so  required.  The  parallel  is 
complete,  except  that  in  the  former  case  we  deal  with  forms  of 
wealth  which  can  be  conveniently  stored  in  vaults  when  not 
needed,  while  in  the  latter  Ave  must  deal  with  human  labor  which 
can  only  be  stored  in  the  bodies  of  human  beings  when  main- 
tained in  health  and  which  is  irretrievably  lost  to  society  when 
these  bodies  are  allowed  to  deteriorate  or  perish  through 
privation  and  want/ 

It  is  thus  apparent  that,  apart  from  any  considerations  of 
humanity  and  fair  play,  the  present  system  or  rather  lack  of 
system  in  allowing  the  individual  worker  to  shoulder  the  full 
weight  of  the  hardships  resulting  from  Unemployment  is  tanta- 
mount to  destroying  a  large  part  of  the  productive  equipment 
of  the  nation  which  can  only  be  restored  in  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  years,  which  is  the  period  necessary  to  raise  a  new 


UNEMPLOYMENT  215 

working  member  of  society.  This  is  apart  from  the  enormous 
money  loss  to  the  community  which  cannot  be  measured  accu- 
rately, but  which  is  so  huge  as  to  stagger  imagination. 

According  to  the  figures  of  the  federal  census  for  1900  there 
were  nearly  6,500,000  people  unemployed  during  the  year  1899 
for  periods  varying  from  one  to  twelve  months  each,  represent- 
ing a  loss  of  wages,  figured  by  the  American  Association  for 
Labor  Legislation  at  an  average  of  $10  per  week,  at  a  total  of 
about  one  billion  dollars  for  that  year.  This  billion  dollars 
/had  to  be  covered  by  the  nation  in  the  form  of  charitable  and 
public  relief  as  well  as  out  of  the  savings  of  the  unemployed 
and,  in  so  far  as  not  so  covered,  the  deficit  resulted  in  the 
deterioration  or  total  destruction  of  the  physique  of  the  working 
people,  which  was  thus  entirely  lost  to  the  nation.  A  part  of 
the  wage  deficit  was  covered  by  crime  with  the  additional  loss 
to  society  represented  by  otherwise  unnecessary  expenditures  on 
prisons,  police,  jailers,  prosecuting  attorneys,  judges,  etc. 

Finally,  there  was  the  loss  of  wealth  which  the  idle  workers 
would  have  produced  in  return  for  the  billion  dollars  of  wages 
they  failed  to  eariV  and  which  may  be  estimated  at  not  less  than 
two  and  a  half  billion  dollars  (on  the  basis  of  the  census  figures 
which  show  an  output  of  $2.50  worth  of  new  products  for  every 
dollar  paid  in  wages). 

It  is  difficult  to  say  what  the  workers  spend  on  themselves 
and  their  families  when  they  are  idle.  Certain  it  is  that  they 
must  spend  some  money  to  live.  Whether  they  draw  upon  fheir 
own  savings  or  upon  those  of  society,  in  the  form  of  charity 
or  loans,  the  accumulated  wealth  of  society  is  diminished  to  that 
extent.  Assuming  that  the  idle  workers  spend  one-half  their 
normal  expenditure,  we  get  an  amount  equal  to  about  half  a 
billion  dollars  as  measuring  the  store  of  accumulated  wealth 
which  is  consumed  annually  by  the  unemployed. 

Adding  to  this  the  two  and  a  half  billion  dollars  worth  of 
wealth  which  they  failed  to  produce  through  the  same  cause,  we 
get  a  total  of  about  three  billion  dollars  per  annum,  not  counting 
the  indirect  losses  caused  by  impairment  of  efficiency  and  vitality 
and  other  conditions  referred  to  above.  If  all  this  could  be  esti- 
mated, the  loss  would  be  greatly  increased.  Thus,  the  havoc 
wrought  by  Unemployment  rivals  in  magnitude  that  caused  by 
some  of  the  greatest  wars.  But  there  is  this  difference:  wars 
are  necessarily  of  brief  duration  and  followed  by  long  periods 


2i6  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

of  peace  and  recuperation,  while  Unemployment  adds  its  cumu- 
lative destructive  effect  year  by  year. 

Once  this  condition  is  realized,  no  effort  will  be  thought  too 
great,  no  measure  too  ambitious  which  will  hold  out  the  promise 
of  an  effective  cure  of  this  greatest  of  our  economic  ills  which 
carries  in  its  train  grave  social  and  political  evils. 

With  this  in  mind,  we  should  be  better  prepared  to  consider  a 
comprehensive  scheme  for  a  national  employment  reserve.  For 
years  the  construction  of  a  national  highway  system  has  been 
agitated  without  appreciable  progress  being  made  in  this  direc- 
tion. As  compared  with  countries  like  Germany  and  France,  we 
have  most  backward  and  inadequate  highways,  comparable  in  a 
large  part  with  the  miserable  rural  roads  of  Russia.  The  absence 
of  good  roads  is  responsible  for  the  fact  that  millions  of  dollars' 
worth  of  agricultural  produce  are  left  to  rot  in  the  field. 

Our  present  system  of  road-building  by  the  states  and  coun- 
ties done  mostly  on  contract  results  not  only  in  poor  construction 
at  a  high  cost  in  a  great  many  instances,  but  also  in  a  lack  of  a 
comprehensive  system  of  highways  which  are  built  to  meet  local 
needs  only,  and  therefore  frequently  end  "ten  miles  from 
nowhere." 

With  the  equal  interest  in  a  comprehensive  system  of  uni- 
formly good  roads  on  the  part  of  the  nation,  state,  and  local 
community,  it  seems  but  fair  that  each  be  made  to  bear  an  equal 
or  whatever  may  be  found  to  be  a  justly  proportional  share  of 
the  cost  of  construction.  If  the  federal  government  were  to 
adopt  a  policy  of  contributing,  say,  one-third  of  the  cost  of 
highway  building  on  the  condition  that  the  state  and  county 
concerned  contribute  their  respective  thirds  and  build  the  high- 
ways according  to  a  previously  worked  out  plan,  so  as  to  make 
them  fit  into  a  great  scheme  of  national  highways,  most,  if  not 
all,  local  governments  would  be  sure  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunity.  j 

The  success  which  marked  the  digging  of  the  Panama  Canal 
by  the  national  government  warrants  the  belief  that  if  national 
road-making  were  placed  in  charge  of  our  army  engineers,  to  be 
done  directly  by  labor  hired  by  the  national  or  state  government 
without  the  corrupting  influence  or,  at  best,  the  legitimate,  but 
wholly  unnecessary  profits  of  intermediary  contractors,  we 
would  get  superior  roads  at  a  saving  in  cost  as  compared  with 
the  present  system  of  helter-skelter  road-building. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  217 

The  magnitude  of  this  task,  the  vast  area  of  swamp  lands 
which  await  drainage  to  be  turned  into  fertile  fields  and  gardens, 
the  building  of  works  to  stop  inundations,  with  their  consequent 
destruction  of  life  and  property,  by  the  Mississippi  and  its  tribu- 
taries, the  harnessing  of  our  water-powers,  and  similar  enter- 
prises, is  a  guarantee  that  the  system  once  adopted  would  have 
ample  work  before  it  to  keep  it  going  for  generations  to  come. 

In  turn,  good  roads  and  drainage  would  open  up  millions  of 
acres  of  land  for  the  permanent  employment  of  a  large  agricul- 
tural population  and  cause  a  demand  for  the  products  of  indus- 
try and  commerce,  giving  employment  to  a  multitude  of  other 
workers,  women  as  well  as  men. 

The  adoption  of  the  scheme  would  involve  the  constant  main- 
tenance of  a  small  nucleus  force  of  engineers  and  skilled  and 
unskilled  workers  so  as  to  maintain  the  organization  intact  and 
capable  of  expansion  on  short  notice.  Congress  would  be  asked 
to  appropriate  annually  a  minimum  amount  necessary  to  main- 
tain the  force,  and  to  authorize  the  President  to  expend  an 
amount  equal  to  one-third  of  the  total  cost  of  any  road  in  the 
United  States  for  which  any  state  (alone  or  together  with  its 
constituent  counties)  was  willing  to  appropriate  the  remaining 
two-thirds. 

The  subvention  to  states  would  be  made  subject  to  certain 
conditions  which  would  insure  the  construction  of  the  roads 
under  federal  supervision  and  according  to  federal  standards  of 
workmanship  and  terms  of  employment,  and  as  a  part  of  a 
federal  highway  system.  In  this  manner  the  presence  of  con- 
siderable Unemployment  in  any  part  of  the  country  would  stimu- 
late increased  appropriation  for  public  works  from  the  local 
public  treasuries,  preference  in  employment  being  given  to  local 
residents. 

Provision  would  have  to  be  made  for  the  reduction  of  the 
force  of  workers  on  the  highways  as  the  demand  for  labor  in 
industries  increased.  The  details  of  organization,  of  federal 
and  state  financing,  of  the  adjustment  of  wages  and  hours,  and 
other  features  of  a  scheme  of  this  magnitude  will  require  much 
thought  and  study.  So  did  the  details  of  the  federal  reserve 
system  which  seemed  to  present  insuperable  technical  difficulties, 
an  irreconcilable  conflict  of  economic  interests  and  a  Gordian 
knot  of  political  tangles  which  only  the  keen  sword  of  bold 
statesmanship  of  President  Wilson  was  able  to  cut  through. 


2i&  UNEMPLOYMENT 

Great  as  the  obstacles  which  will  undoubtedly  beset  the  working 
out  of  such  a  scheme  may  be,  they  offer  none  of  the  technical 
difficulties,  nor  the  political  and  economic  barriers  which  beset 
the  adoption  and  inauguration  of  the  federal  reserve  system. 

The  necessity  of  contributing  $2  for  every  dollar  to  be 
secured  from  the  federal  government  would  act  as  an  effective 
safeguard  against  the  pork  barrel  evil,  for  no  congressman  would 
try  to  secure  appropriations  for  his  district  unless  his  constitu- 
ency was  willing  to  tax  itself  to  twice  the  extent  of  such  an 
appropriation.  The  principle,  if  applied  to  our  policy  of  river 
and  harbor  improvements  might  easily  cure  the  latter  of  the 
pork  barrel  evil  and  bring  about  the  long  cherished  inauguration 
of  a  really  comprehensive  and  effective  system  of  internal  water- 
ways. These  would  admirably  supplement  the  proposed  highway 
system  and  could  be  incorporated  in  the  scheme  of  a  national 
employment  reserve. 

While  road-making,  swamp  draining,  and  similar  work  is 
thought  to  furnish  a  most  promising  source  of  employment  in  a 
scheme  such  as  is  here  described,  it  is  not  meant  to  confine  public 
enterprise  necessarily  to  these  only.  Any  other  form  of  public 
works  which  combines  the  advantages  of  offering  remunerative 
employment  at  socially  useful  labor,  which  is  of  sufficient  magni- 
tude to  require  years  for  completion  and  yet  is  not  so  urgently 
required  as  not  to  permit  of  slackening  the  pace  when  workers 
are  needed  elsewhere,  is  available  for  the  purpose  of  regulating 
employment  on  a  national  scale. 

In  this  respect  the  municipalities  would  be  in  a  position  to 
supplement  the  system  by  a  thoughtfully  planned  scheme  of 
municipal  undertakings,  such  as  model  house  building  and  similar 
works  of  an  extraordinary  nature,  of  a  productive  character  for 
which  funds  could  be  raised  by  the  issue  of  bonds  secured  by 
the  value  of  the  buildings  and  plants  created. 


WORK  NEGATIVE 

Living  Age.    256:611-25.    March  7,  1908 
The  Right  to  Work 

Of  all  the  proposals  put  forward  by  the  Socialist  party  none 
is  more  superficially  attractive  than  the  demand  that  the  state 
should  make  provision  for  the  unemployed.  The  tragedy  of 
Unemployment  appeals  to  all  of  us.  Even  those  who  have  been 
relieved  by  the  generosity  of  their  parents,  or  by  the  favor  of 
fortune,  from  the  necessity  of  working  for  their  living  must  feel 
sympathy  with  the  man  who  is  willing  to  work  but  can  find  no 
one  to  provide  him  with  employment.  That  there  are  many  such 
men  in  this  country  and  in  every  country  at  this  moment  and  at 
every  moment  is  indisputable,  and  no  one  who  has  the  least 
spark  of  human  feeling  can  fail  to  be  eager  to  find  some  sure 
means  of  diminishing  their  number  or  of  abbreviating  their 
period  of  Unemployment.  All  this  is  common  ground;  it  is 
only  when  we  pass  to  the  question  of  how  to  do  what  we  all 
want  done  that  divergence  of  opinion  arises.  There  are  some 
people  who  appear  to  imagine  that  every  ill  that  human  flesh  is 
heir  to  can  be  swept  away  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  by  passing 
an  act  of  Parliament.  Even  if  they  are  not  prepared  to  draft 
this  wonderful  measure  themselves  they  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  it  can  be  drafted,  and  they  are  willing  to  pin  their 
faith  to  any  scheme  that  is  preached  with  sufficient  emphasis 
or  advertised  with  sufficient  skill.  When  any  one  ventures  to 
point  out  that  the  particular  scheme  which  has  momentarily 
secured  their  support  is  no  remedy  at  all,  they  close  the  discus- 
sion by  asking  with  impatient  contempt,  "What  then  is  your 
remedy?"  They  never  pause  to  reflect  that  progress  cannot  be 
secured  by  blindly  following  the  leadership  of  the  blind,  and 
that  it  is  easier  to  advertise  a  quack  medicine  than  to  find  a 
real  remedy  for  a  long  standing  disease. 

Nor  can  it  be  admitted  that  those  who  point  out  the  failure 
of  popular  panaceas  are  always  under  an  obligation  themselves 
to  propose  some  positive  scheme  of  reform.  Often  the  only 


220  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

remedy  required  is  a  negative  one.  Part  of  the  trouble  from 
which  the  world  suffers  is  due  to  positive  wrong-doing,  and  that 
cannot  be  prevented  until  men  are  willing  to  adopt  the  negative 
remedy  of  abstaining  from  wrong  action.  What  proportion  of 
our  present  day  troubles  may  require  this  negative  treatment  we 
need  not  attempt  to  consider.  It  is  however  worth  while  to 
remember  that  in  a  certain  code  of  conduct  accepted  as  sacred, 
now  and  in  past  ages,  by  many  millions  of  men,  70  per  cent  of 
the  rules  laid  down  begin  with  the  words  "Thou  shalt  not"  The 
importance  of  thus  saying  "No"  is  not  limited  to  individual 
conduct.  It  applies  equally  to  measures  proposed  by  the  state. 
When  the  community  is  threatened  with  acts  of  Parliament 
which  would  only  aggravate  the  disease  they  are  intended  to 
cure,  it  becomes  the  urgent  duty  of  men  who  love  their  country 
to  oppose  such  false  remedies  to  the  utmost  of  their  ability, 
and  frankly  to  say,  "We  are  not  prepared  to  cure  in  a  moment 
diseases  that  have  endured  for  centuries,  but  we  are  resolved, 
so  far  as  our  strength  permits,  to  prevent  you  from  making  the 
disease  worse." 

There  is  no  pleasure  in  coming  to  such  a  negative  conclusion. 
It  is  far  more  agreeable  to  delude  oneself  with  the  belief  that 
all  the  poverty  and  suffering  and  sorrow  in  the  world  can  be 
promptly  cured  by  administering  to  the  body  politic  a  few  well 
advertised  social  pills.  Those  who  fail  to  succumb  to  such 
delusions  have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  being  called  cold-hearted  and 
hard-mouthed,  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  the  poor,  and  de- 
fenders of  the  wealth  of  the  rich.  These  accusations  are  not 
pleasant,  but  they  must  be  accepted  as  part  of  the  day's  work 
by  all  who  venture  to  point  out  that  some  momentarily  fashion- 
able remedy  is  either  useless  or  actively  harmful.  The  best 
consolation  lies  in  remembering  that  it  is  not  the  business  of 
thoughtful  men  to  shout  with  the  crowd,  but  to  try  and  find  out 
the  truth. 

For  these  reasons  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the 
country  should  examine,  carefully  and  critically,  the  proposal 
put  forward  by  the  Labor  party  for  the  creation  of  a  statutory 
"right  to  work."  This  proposal  is  embodied  in  a  bill  introduced 
into  the  House  of  Commons  in  July  last  and  formally  read  a 
first  time.  The  same  bill,  if  opportunity  serves,  is  to  be  intro- 
duced next  session.  The  essential  clause  of  this  bill  declares 
that: 


UNEMPLOYMENT  221 

Where  a  workman  has  registered  himself  as  unemployed,  it  shall  be 
the  duty  of  the  local  Unemployment  authority  to  provide  work  for  him 
in  connection  with  one  or  other  of  the  schemes  hereinafter  provided, 
or  otherwise,  or  failing  the  provision  of  work,  to  provide  maintenance, 
should  necessity  exist,  for  that  person  and  for  those  depending  on  that 
person  for  the  necessaries  of  life:  provided  that  a  refusal  on  the  part 
of  the  unemployed  workman  to  accept  reasonable  work  upon  one  of 
these  schemes,  or  employment  upon  conditions  not  lower  than  those 
that  are  standard  to  the  work  in  the  locality,  shall  release  the  local 
Unemployment  authority  of  its  duties  under  this  section. 

A  subsequent  clause  provides  that  where  Unemployment  is 
due  "to  deliberate  and  habitual  disinclination  to  work,"  the  indi- 
vidual concerned  may  be  subjected  to  control  for  a  period  not 
exceeding  six  months,  "which  period  must  be  passed  in  the 
performance  of  reasonable  work  under  the  supervision  or  control 
of  the  local  Unemployment  authority."  The  rest  of  the  bill 
deals  with  the  machinery  for  carrying  out  the  principle  above 
quoted.  In  addition  to  the  "local  Unemployment  authorities," 
there  is  to  be  a  "central  Unemployment  committee,"  composed  of 
representatives  of  trade  unions  and  of  the  principal  government 
offices.  These  bodies  between  them  are  to  frame  schemes  for 
setting  the  unemployed  to  work.  The  money  is  to  be  found 
partly  by  the  local  authorities  and  partly  by  the  imperial 
exchequer. 

To  most  people  these  proposals  will  seem  somewhat  startling. 
That,  however,  is  only  because  we  have  forgotten  the  follies 
as  well  as  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors.  Similar  proposals 
were  actually  embodied  in  the  statute  law  of  England  more  than 
three  hundred  years  ago,  while  even  before  that  date  voluntary 
attempts  were  made  by  the  municipalities  to  organize  work  for 
the  unemployed.  As  early  as  1557  the  old  palace  of  Bridewell 
was  converted  into  an  institution  in  which  various  industries 
were  carried  on  by  men  who  could  not  obtain  employment 
elsewhere.  This  London  example  was  followed  by  a  good  many 
other  municipalities  in  the  full  spirit  of  modern  municipal 
socialism.  Moreover,  just  as  the  Labor  Party  today  provides 
for  the  case  of  persons  afflicted  with  "a  deliberate  and  habitual 
disinclination  to  work,"  so  did  our  ancestors  provide  for  the 
incorrigible  idler.  Under  various  statutes  vagrants  and  idlers 
of  either  sex  were  liable  to  be  whipped  "till  their  bodies  be 
bloody,"  with  the  additional  refinement  in  some  cases  of  being 
bored  through  the  ear.  They  might  also  be  committed  into 


222  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

slavery  for  a  period  of  years,  and  if  they  ran  away  they  might 
be  enslaved  for  life.  When  these  gentle  methods  of  persuasion 
failed  the  incorrigible  idler  was  finally  disposed  of  by  hanging. 

Some  modern  socialists  are  fond  of  appealing  to  the  social- 
istic legislation  of  Queen  Elizabeth  as  a  glorious  example  for 
the  statesmanship  of  today.  They  forget  to  say  whether  they 
are  also  in  favor  of  reviving  the  whippings  and  the  slavery  and 
the  hangings  that  were  part  of  the  Elizabethan  regime.  Nor  do 
they  attempt  to  explain  how  it  happened  that  legislation  which 
they  regard  as  so  supremely  excellent  should  have  proved  so 
complete  a  failure.  The  powers  conferred  upon  the  guardians 
of  the  poor  by  the  act  of  1601  have  never  been  specifically 
repealed.  They  were  even  extended  so  late  as  the  year  1819. 
Even  now  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  socialistic  board  of  guardians 
would  not  be  legally  entitled,  under  the  act  of  Elizabeth,  to 
raise  money  from  the  parish  in  order  to  provide  a  "convenient 
stock  of  flax,  hemp,  wool,  thread,  iron,  and  other  necessary  ware 
and  stuff  to  set  the  poor  on  work."  At  any  rate  down  to  1834 
the  socialists  had  their  chance.  For  more  than  two  centuries 
the  system  which  they  wish  to  revive  could  legally  be  put  into 
operation  in  any  parish,  and  was  put  into  operation  in  many 
parishes.  Yet  everybody  knows  that  the  system  was  an  absolute 
failure.  Instead  of  diminishing  poverty  it  added  to  the  numbers 
and  to  the  degradation  of  the  poor.  On  this  point  the  evidence 
collected  by  the  poor  law  commissioners  of  1834  is  conclusive. 
It  shows  that  where  the- poor  law  was  administered  on  the  prin- 
ciples which  it  is  now  proposed  to  reestablish,  idlers  were  multi- 
plied and  poverty  was  increased. 

As  even  this  long  experience  does  not  suffice  to  convince 
some  minds,  it  is  worth  while  briefly  to  describe  the  main  fea- 
tures of  a  more  modern  experiment.  Early  in  the  year  1848  a 
revolution  took  place  in  France.  The  king  was  expelled  and  a 
republican  government  was  established.  The  new  government 
was  inspired  by  socialistic  theories  and  was  completely  dominated 
by  the  working  classes  of  Paris.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the 
new  government  was  to  decree  the  right  to  work  which  our 
English  socialists  sixty  years  later  are  now  shouting  for  as  a 
new  thing.  The  text  of  the  decree  is  as  follows : 

Le  Gouvernement  provisoire  de  la  Rgpublique  franchise  s'engage  a 
garantir  1'existence  de  1'ouvrier  par  le  travail.  II  s'engage  a  garantir  du 
travail  a  tous  les  citoyens.  (Decree  of  February  25,  1848.) 


UNEMPLOYMENT  223 

On  the  next  day,  February  26,  the  government  proceeded  to 
decree  the  "immediate  establishment  of  national  workshops 
(ateliers  nationaux}"  It  was  easier  to  make  this  decree  than  to 
carry  it  out.  But  a  happy  accident  occurred.  A  young  man 
named  Emile  Thomas,  armed  with  a  letter  of  introduction,  called 
on  March  3  on  the  Minister  of  Public  Works  and  offered  to 
organize  the  unemployed  in  accordance  with  the  ideas  of  Saint 
Simon.  He  hoped,  with  the  aid  of  the  pupils  of  the  Central 
School  of  Engineering,  to  maintain  order  among  the  men,  espe- 
cially by  employing  moral  influence.  His  offer  was  accepted  by 
the  ministry  with  effusive  gratitude.  A  disused  building  in  the 
Pare  Mongeaux,  which  had  been  part  of  a  royal  villa,  was 
assigned  to  him  for  his  headquarters.  Here  M.  Thomas  and  his 
mother  established  their  private  menage  in  some  upper  rooms ; 
accommodation  being  also  provided  for  the  principal  officials. 
The  rest  of  the  building  was  left  free  for  the  work  of  brigading 
the  unemployed.  No  time  was  wasted.  On  March  5,  two  days 
after  his  first  interview  with  the  ministry,  M.  Thomas  summoned 
a  conference  of  the  mayors  of  the  different  districts  of  Paris 
and  expounded  his  scheme.  He  promised  to  be  ready  on  March 
9  to  enrol  a  first  batch  of  3,000  men  from  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tressed districts,  the  other  districts  to  follow  in  daily  sequence. 
On  March  8  he  gathered  together  the  pupils  of  the  Central 
School  of  Engineering  at  the  Pare  Mongeaux  and  explained  their 
duties  to  them.  "I  found  them,"  he  says,  "filled  with  zeal  and 
animated  with  the  best  intentions."  The  next  morning  the  enrol- 
ment of  the  first  3,000  men  began.  The  unit  of  organization 
was  the  squad  of  eleven  men  under  a  "chief";  next  came  the 
brigade  of  five  squads  under  a  "brigadier,"  and  so  on.  The 
rates  of  pay  were  not  high.  The  workers  received  2  francs  on 
days  of  activity  and  ij^  francs  on  days  of  inactivity;  the  squad 
chiefs  received  slightly  more,  and  the  brigadiers  received  3 
francs  a  day  whether  work  was  going  on  or  not.  The  first  job 
was  to  root  up  the  trunks  of  the  trees  that  had  been  destroyed 
during  the  revolutionary  fighting  on  the  boulevards,  and  to  plant 
new  ones.  This  only  required  the  labor  of  a  few  hundred  men; 
and  it  was  decided  to  send  the  others  on  foot  to  fetch  tools 
from  the  forts  round  Paris,  and  to  fetch  young  trees  from 
distant  nurseries.  "This  method  of  transport,"  remarks  M. 
Thomas,  "was  at  once  absurd  and  ruinous;  but  what  did  the 
loss  of  a  few  hundred  francs  matter  in  comparison  with  the 


224  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

terrible  example  of  giving  a  subsidy  to  idle  men?"  The  next  day 
an  additional  1,200  men  arrived,  many  of  them  bringing  personal 
recommendations  from  prominent  politicians  asking  that  they 
should  be  given  posts  as  superintendents.  The  difficulty  of  find- 
ing work  for  all  these  men  grew  every  day  more  serious.  "Each 
day  I  went  to  the  Minister  of  Public  Works;  each  day  I  re- 
turned with  the  reply,  'the  engineers  have  found  no  jobs  yet.'" 
On  March  15  M.  Thomas  had  14,000  men  unoccupied.  To 
meet  this  serious  situation  the  government  engineers  were  in- 
structed by  the  ministry  to  specify  works  that  were  possible, 
rather  than  works  that  were  really  useful,  and  a  number  of 
schemes  of  road-making  and  levelling  were  adopted,  and  gave 
work  to  most  of  the  men  already  enrolled.  But  fresh  supplies 
of  unemployed  continued  to  arrive,  and  even  at  this  early  stage 
it  was  discovered  that  many  of  the  men  were  not  passionately 
eager  for  work.  They  preferred  to  draw  il/2  francs  a  day  for 
inactivity,  rather  than  2  francs  for  doing  more  or  less  hard 
work.  To  meet  this  difficulty  the  inactivity  pay  was  reduced  to 
i  franc,  but  still  the  numbers  continued  to  grow.  Indeed  so  lax 
was  the  administration  that  many  men  came  to  draw  their  I 
franc  as  unemployed,  and  then  quietly  went  off  to  earn  their 
living  in  their  ordinary  employment.  Other  men  inscribed  them- 
selves in  several  different  brigades  and  drew  pay  from  each. 
All  this  irregularity  went  on  in  spite  of  a  host  of  clerks  and 
supervisors,  who  had  been  provided  with  posts  at  headquarters 
on  political  recommendation.  Emile  Thomas  writes  that  he 
received  recommendations  from  all  the  members  of  the  pro- 
visional government — from  one  member  no  less  than  700 — and 
also  from  their  wives,  their  children,  and  the  doorkeepers.  He 
adds  that  the  ateliers  nationaux  were  looked  upon  by  the  min- 
istry as  a  drain  for  drawing  off  the  suppurating  horde  of  place- 
hunters  and  parasites.  Less  bitter  but  more  tragic  is  the  account 
he  gives  of  the  receipt  of  an  order  from  the  Ministry  of  Public 
Works  to  deal  all  at  once  with  the  claims  of  600  persons,  "dra- 
matic artists,  painters,  sculptors,  designers,  bank  clerks,  and 
shop  assistants."  These  men  had  addressed  to  the  ministry  the 
following  pitiful  plea: 

The  republic  has  guaranteed  work  to  every  citizen.  We  have  none. 
We  do  not  ask  that  work  should  be  given  to  us,  as  was  promised,  each  in 
our  own  occupation.  We  know  that  this  would  be  impossible.  But  at  least 
give  us  the  opportunity  of  honorably  earning  the  bread  we  need.  We  are 
at  the  end  of  our  resources,  and  the  municipal  authorities  refuse  to  give 


UNEMPLOYMENT  225 

us  tickets  of  admission  to  the  ateliers  nationaux  because  we  wear  the  clothes 
to  which  we  have  been  accustomed  and  not  the  dress  of  workmen.  Yet 
we  are  worthy  of  pity  as  well  as  they. 

M.  Thomas  promptly  took  on  the  whole  of  the  600  and 
employed  them  to  act  as  inspectors  of  pay-sheets,  and  to  visit 
the  ordinary  workmen  in  their  homes  and  report  on  their 
"physical  and  moral  condition." 

It  is  important  to  note  that  only  a  few  attempts,  and  those 
only  affecting  a  very  small  number  of  men,  were  made  by 
M.  Thomas  to  organize  any  industry  other  than  road-making, 
leveling,  and  unskilled  work  of  that  character.  On  the  other 
hand,  M.  Louis  Blanc  obtained  the  permission  of  the  govern- 
ment, to  organize,  partly  on  cooperative,  partly  on  socialist  prin- 
ciples, a  workshop  for  the  supply  of  clothes  and  saddlery  to 
the  army.  Some  workshops  for  women  were  also  started,  and 
one  or  two  other  stray  experiments  were  made.  The  taxpayer 
bore  the  cost  of  all  these  enterprises,  and  most  of  them  disap- 
peared in  the  general  crash  that  brought  the  ateliers  nationaux 
to  an  end. 

As  above  stated,  it  was  on  March  9  that  the  enrolment  at 
the  ateliers  nationaux  began  with  3,000  men.  By  the  end  of 
April  this  number  had  risen  to  over  100,000,  and  most  of  the 
men  had  ceased  to  make  even  a  pretence  of  working.  Early 
in  May  one  of  the  ministers  delivered  an  oration  to  these  "na- 
tional workmen,"  and  ventured  to  refer  to  the  duty  of  working. 
The  remark  was  received  with  murmurs  of  disapproval.  Mean- 
while the  financial  situation  was  growing  every  day  more  seri- 
ous. The  provisional  government  had  been  replaced  by  a  Na- 
tional Assembly  regularly  elected  by  the  whole  of  France.  The 
necessity  of  finding  the  money  for  the  ateliers  nationaux  fell 
upon  the  Assembly,  and  every  additional  million  francs  de- 
manded met  with  increased  protests  from  the  deputies.  These 
national  workshops,  or  gangs  of  national  workmen,  had  been  in 
existence  barely  two  months,  and  already  they  were  recognized 
as  a  dangerous  drain  upon  the  strength  of  the  nation.  M.  Emile 
Thomas,  the  enthusiastic  organizer  of  the  scheme,  did  his  best ; 
he  seems  to  have  acted  honestly,  and  he  certainly  preached 
honesty  to  others.  At  the  same  time  he  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  of  utilizing  the  great  army  of  men  whom  he  con- 
trolled as  an  instrument  with  which  to  threaten  the  government. 
At  last  the  situation  became  intolerable,  and  on  May  26  he  was 


226  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

craftily  kidnapped,  by  order  of  the  government,  and  sent  under 
police  escort  to  Bordeaux.  An  attempt  was  then  made  by  the 
government  to  substitute  piece  work  for  day  work,  and  also  to 
send  back  to  the  provinces  the  men  who  had  poured  into  Paris 
to  enjoy  the  subsidized  idleness  provided  in  the  ateliers  nation- 
aux.  On  June  22  an  order  was  issued  that  all  the  national 
workmen  between  seventeen  and  twenty-five  were  to  enlist  in 
the  army,  and  that  if  they  failed  to  do  so  they  would  cease  to 
be  entitled  to  maintenance.  A  large  number  of  the  rest  of  the 
men  were  ordered  to  enrol  themselves  for  work  in  the  country. 
An  insurrection  instantly  broke  out,  barricades  were  erected, 
and  for  three  days  it  was  uncertain  whether  the  government  or 
the  unemployed  would  win.  It  was  only  on  the  fourth  day 
that  General  Cavaignac  was  able  to  report  that  "order  had 
triumphed  over  anarchy."  Some  3,000  persons  were  killed  in 
the  fighting,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  3,376  insurgents  were 
arrested  and  transported  to  Algeria.  That  was  the  end  of  the 
"right  to  work"  under  the  French  Republic  of  1848.  In  the 
words  of  Levasseur,  "Jamais  insurrection  parisienne  n'avait 
j usque-la  fait  verser  tant  de  sang  et  cause  tant  de  deuils." 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  government  responsible  for 
the  famous  decree  of  February  25  establishing  the  "right  to 
work"  was  not  a  government  chosen  by  the  people.  It  consisted 
of  a  little  group  of  socialists  who,  by  virtue  of  an  unexpectedly 
successful  street  riot,  had  been  able  to  seize  supreme  power. 
They  had  for  at  least  two  months  the  whole  machinery  of  the 
government  of  France  at  their  command,  and  they  failed 
miserably. 

It  is  clear  that  when  the  Socialists  demand  the  right  to 
work  the  thing  they  ask  for  is  not  the  thing  they  want.  They 
ask  for  work;  they  want  wages.  Most  of  us  can  sympathize 
with  the  demand  for  wages.  Most  of  us  are  wage  earners 
dependent  for  our  living  upon  the  wages  we  earn.  But  most 
of  us  have  long  ago  learnt  that  in  order  to  get  wages  a  man 
must  offer  work  which  somebody  wants,  and  must  take  the 
trouble  to  discover  that  somebody.  If  he  fails  to  do  this  he 
is  not  justified  in  asking  Parliament  to  force  other  people  to 
pay  him  a  wage  for  doing  something  which  they  do  not  want 
done.  Possibly  many  people  might  be  willing,  as  they  certainly 
ought  to  be  willing,  to  give  him  a  helping  hand.  The  duty  of 
the  strong  to  help  the  weak,  of  the  fortunate  to  help  the  unfor- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  227 

tunate,  is  instinctive  in  us  because  we  are  human  beings.  The 
beasts  of  the  forest  have  no  such  instinct;  they  are  pitiless  to 
one  another.  But  this  duty  that  men  feel  because  they  are  men, 
is  not  discharged,  it  is  not  even  recognized,  when  the  state 
compulsorily  takes  from  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry,  part  of  the 
wages  which  they  earn,  or  part  of  the  property  which  they 
possess,  and  hands  the  money  over  to  some  individual  whom 
they  perhaps  have  never  seen.  There  is  no  trace  of  human 
kindliness  in  such  a  transaction  as  this.  The  whole  proceeding 
is  impersonal  and  mechanical.  It  cannot  possibly  create  any 
feeling  of  comradeship,  or  of  sympathy  with  suffering.  On  the 
contrary,  it  may  easily  create  a  bitter  sense  of  injustice  and 
wrong.  Therefore,  on  moral  grounds,  there  is  nothing  whatever 
to  be  said  in  defence  of  the  Socialist  proposal  that  people  who 
have  failed  to  find  work — including  those  who  have  not  looked 
for  it — should  be  provided  with  wages  by  the  state  at  the 
expense  of  men  who  have  been  more  persistent  or  more  for- 
tunate. Such  a  policy,  if  carried  into  execution  on  any  consid- 
erable scale,  would  certainly  arouse  an  angry  feeling  of  resent- 
ment, and  thus  tend  to  destroy  that  very  sense  of  human 
comradeship  which  is  so  important  an  element  of  social  progress. 

This  moral  mischief  would  be  so  serious  that  we  should 
hardly  be  justified  in  risking  it  for  any  economic  advantage 
however  great.  When,  however,  we  examine  the  economic  as- 
pects of  the  proposed  right  to  work,  we  find  that  this  Socialist 
proposal  is  as  unsound  economically  as  it  is  dangerous  morally. 
If  every  man  knew  that  when  he  was  out  of  work  he  had  only 
to  present  himself  at  some  government  depot,  and  that  he  would 
there  obtain  a  definite  wage  in  return  for  some  undefined  work, 
a  large  number  of  men  would  abandon  their  present  occupations 
for  the  sake  of  a  softer  job. 

That,  indeed,  is  part  of  the  programme  of  the  Socialist  party. 
They  have  a  belief  that  by  making  soft  jobs  at  the  taxpayer's 
expense  they  can  improve  the  general  condition  of  the  wage- 
earning  classes.  The  fallacy  arises  from  neglecting  to  ask 
what  the  taxpayer  would  have  done  with  his  money  if  he  had 
not  been  compelled  to  give  it  up  to  the  government  to  pay  for 
these  soft  jobs.  Of  necessity  he  would  have  spent  it,  directly  or 
indirectly,  in  paying  wages.  When  a  lady  buys  a  hat  she  is,  in 
effect,  paying  the  wages,  not  only  of  the  workgirl  who  made  the 
hat,  but  also  of  the  operative  who  wove  the  ribbons  or  plaited 


228  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

the  straw,  and  of  the  sailors,  railway-men,  carters,  clerks,  shop- 
assistants  and  others  who  by  their  labor,  all  contributed  to  the 
bringing  together  of  the  materials  of  which  the  hat  is  composed, 
and  to  its  conveyance  to  the  final  purchaser.  All  these  persons 
are  ultimately  dependent  for  their  wages — or  to  be  strictly  accu- 
rate, for  a  proportional  part  of  their  wages — upon  the  lady  who 
buys  the  hat.  It  may  be  that  some  ladies  buy  too  many  hats. 
That  is  a  moral  question  upon  which  a  few  words  may  presently 
be  said.  For  the  moment  we  are  only  concerned  with  the 
economic  fact  that  a  lady,  by  buying  a  hat,  provides  payment 
for  the  persons  employed  in  making  the  hat  and  conveying  it 
to  her  head.  The  same  economic  sequence  of  events  applies 
to  any  money  that  is  saved.  By  saving  money  a  man  transfers 
his  power  of  spending  it  to  the  company  or  firm  or  corporation 
or  government  with  whom  he  invests  the  money.  In  every  case 
the  money  is  spent,  and,  in  being  spent,  provides  for  the  pay- 
ment of  wages.  When,  then,  money  is  taken  from  the  taxpayer 
by  the  government  in  order  to  provide  wages  for  the  unem- 
ployed, the  people  whose  wages  it  now  provides  must  suffer. 

The  position  will  be  made  clearer  by  taking  a  simple  illustra- 
tion. Suppose  that  an  extra  tax  of  5o/.  a  year  is  imposed  upon 
a  well-to-do  citizen  in  order  to  obtain  money  for  paying  wages 
to  the  unemployed,  and  suppose  that  the  well-to-do  citizen  finds 
that  the  most  convenient  way  of  meeting  this  extra  burden  is  to 
get  rid  of  one  of  his  gardeners.  It  then  becomes  obvious  that 
the  supposed  remedy  has  done  nothing  to  remove  the  evil  of 
Unemployment.  One  unemployed  man  has  been  brought  into 
employment,  one  gardener  has  been  thrown  out  of  employment. 

That  is  what  always  happens,  and  always  must  happen. 
Every  penny  of  public  money  raised  by  taxation  comes  out  of 
private  pockets,  and  therefore  every  class  of  public  expenditure 
is  accompanied  by  a  minus  of  private  expenditure.  At  the 
very  best,  government  expenditure,  whether  for  the  benefit  of 
the  unemployed  or  for  any  other  purpose,  only  shifts  employ- 
ment. It  takes  away  work  from  the  persons  who  would  have 
been  employed  by  private  individuals  and  gives  work  to  the 
persons  selected  for  state  employment. 

Up  to  a  certain  point  this  transference  of  employment  is 
necessary.  It  is  necessary  that  some  men  should  be  deprived  of 
work  as  laborers  or  gardeners  or  grooms  in  order  that  they  or 
other  men  may  be  employed  as  soldiers  or  sailors  or  policemen. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  229 

It  is  necessary  that  cotton-spinners  and  iron-smelters,  boot- 
makers and  barbers,  should  often  be  short  of  work  in  order 
that  money  may  be  found  to  pay  the  salaries  of  his  Majesty's 
judges  and  of  a  limited  number  of  cabinet  ministers  and  gov- 
ernment clerks.  Until  the  Anarchist  millennium  arrives  these 
government  employees  are  necessary  to  keep  the  social  machine 
in  working  order.  Without  them  the  economic  structure  of 
society — bad  though  it  may  be — would  be  dissolved  into  a  worse 
chaos.  But  government  employees,  whatever  their  rank,  and 
whatever  the  excuse  for  employing  them,  must  justify  their 
expenditure  by  the  work  they  do.  Unless  this  government  work 
is  more  valuable  to  the  nation  than  the  work  done  by  the 
persons  thrown  out  of  private  employment  there  is  no  net  gain. 
An  unemployed  man  who  is  set  to  do  useless  work  as  an  excuse 
for  paying  him  wages  is  a  mere  drag  upon  the  wealth  of  the 
nation.  Economically  it  is  far  better  that  the  money  required 
for  his  wage  should  remain  with  the  taxpayers  to  be  spent  by 
them,  let  us  assume,  in  paying  for  the  work  of  an  additional 
bootblack.  In  each  case  the  nation  has  to  keep  a  man  and  to 
provide  him  with  food  and  clothing  and  house-room,  but  in  the 
case  of  an  unemployed  man  who  is  only  playing  at  work  the 
nation  gets  back  nothing;  in  the  case  of  the  bootblack  it  gets 
back  cleaned  and  polished  boots. 

The  sole  test  then  is  the  test  of  utility.  Does  the  nation 
want  the  new  work,  on  which  it  is  proposed  to  employ  the 
unemployed,  as  much  as  it  wants  the  old  work  now  being  done 
by  persons  who  will  be  thrown  out  of  employment  when  the 
taxpayer  is  called  upon  to  pay  for  the  new  work?  Only  one 
answer  is  possible  to  that  question.  If  the  nation  really  wanted 
this  new  work  done,  we  should  set  about  doing  it  without 
regard  to  the  problem  of  employment.  We  do  not  engage  post- 
men in  order  to  provide  wages  for  the  unemployed.  We  engage 
them  because  we  want  our  letters  carried.  In  the  same  way 
if  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  desirable  to  plant 
forests  on  the  moors  of  Scotland  or  Yorkshire  we  should  set 
about  that  business  with  the  sole  idea  of  doing  the  work  as 
efficiently  and  as  economically  as  possible.  We  should  get 
together  the  workmen  best  suited  to  the  job,  and  give  them,  as 
far  as  possible,  permanent  billets.  Their  employment  on  this 
work  would  make  no  difference  to  the  present  unemployed  prob- 
lem. The  trees  that  it  is  proposed  to  plant  upon  Scotch  moors 

18 


330  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

will  give  back  no  return  for  many  years  to  come.  In  the  mean- 
time the  men  employed  in  planting  and  tending  them  can  only 
be  paid  with  money  which  otherwise  would  have  been  used  to 
pay  the  wages  of  other  persons.  Consequently,  there  is  no  addi- 
tion to  the  sum  total  of  present  employment.  One  man  has 
been  thrown  out  of  work  and  another  man  brought  into  work. 
In  a  word,  we  cannot  create  additional  employment  unless 
simultaneously  we  create  additional  wealth  with  which  to  pay 
for  it. 

This  proposition  is  so  important  that  it  is  well  to  enlarge 
upon  it.  By  employment  is  clearly  meant  paid  employment.  No- 
body would  stir  up  a  political  agitation  to  secure  the  privilege 
of  working  without  pay.  What  then  is  pay?  In  the  first 
instance  pay  is  made  in  money,  but  the  money  is  promptly 
converted  into  the  things  and  services  the  workman  wants  for 
his  own  life  and  the  life  of  his  family — bread  and  butter  and 
cheese,  coats  and  shirts  and  stockings,  chairs  and  tables,  sauce- 
pans and  fire-grates,  timber  for  flooring,  and  tiles  for  a  roof. 
Without  these  things  he  cannot  live;  these  and  similar  commo- 
dities and  conveniences  are  the  things  he  works  for.  They  are 
his  pay.  At  once,  then,  it  becomes  clear  that  we  cannot  increase 
the  sum  total  of  paid  employment,  unless  we  also  increase  the 
volume  of  commodities  and  conveniences  which  all  men  want. 
None  of  the  proposed  schemes  for  state  employment  for  the 
unemployed  do  this.  They  are  all  designed,  not  to  produce 
things  that  somebody  wants,  but  to  provide  an  excuse  for 
paying  wages  to  people  who  cannot  find  work.  In  every  case 
the  work  is  made  for  the  sake  of  the  workman,  and  that  very 
fact  implies  that  the  work  is  not  wanted  for  its  own  sake.  It 
is  therefore  less  valuable  to  the  nation  than  work  undertaken 
for  ordinary  commercial  or  national  motives.  Yet,  in  order 
that  this  work  may  be  paid  for,  the  taxpayer  is  deprived  of  the 
power  to  pay  for  work  that  he  wanted  done.  His  employees 
will  lose  their  employment.  Men  who  were  doing  something 
that  was  wanted  will  cease  to  work,  in  order  that  others  may 
be  employed  upon  something  that  is  not  wanted.  Under  such 
conditions  the  production  of  desirable  things,  or  wealth,  will  be 
diminished;  there  will  be  less  wealth  available  for  the  payment 
of  labor,  and  therefore  less  employment.  This  is  why  schemes 
of  state  employment  for  the  unemployed  of  necessity  intensify 
the  very  evil  they  are  intended  to  remedy,  and  ought,  therefore, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  231 

to  be  resolutely  and  relentlessly  opposed  by  all  who  wish  to 
diminish  the  hideous  evil  of  Unemployment. 

We  can  only  diminish  that  evil  by  improving  the  organiza- 
tion of  industry  so  that  work  is  made  less  irregular,  and  by 
increasing  the  efficiency  of  labor  so  that  more  wealth  is  pro- 
duced. In  the  case  of  seasonal  trades,  men  should  be  encour- 
aged to  learn  a  second  trade  so  that  they  may  be  able  to  work 
all  the  year  round.  In  the  case  of  intermittent  work  such  as 
dock  labor,  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  organize  unskilled  labor 
on  a  semi-military  system  through  the  agency  of  some  labor 
company  or  labor  trust.  In  such  an  organization  the  men  would 
receive  a  retaining  wage  as  servants  of  the  labor  company,  and 
an  additional  payment  when  sent  out  to  work.  There  seems 
no  reason  why  a  company  for  the  supply  of  manual  labor 
should  not  be  as  commercially  successful,  and  as  nationally 
beneficial,  as  a  railway  company  that  supplies  transport  or  a  gas 
company  that  supplies  light.  More  generally,  we  want  to  en- 
courage permanence  in  the  contracts  between  workmen  and 
employers.  The  period  of  engagement  ought  in  most  industries 
to  be  lengthened,  and  the  contract  of  employment  ought  always 
to  provide  for  reasonable  notice  on  either  side  before  the 
engagement  is  terminated.  In  these  and  in  other  directions 
there  is  enormous  scope  for  the  improvement  of  our  industrial 
organization  both  in  outline  and  in  detail ;  but  this  valuable  work 
has  been  largely  neglected,  while  money  and  time  have  been 
lavished  upon  charitable  and  semi-socialistic  schemes  which  only 
deal  with  external  symptoms  and  leave  the  inward  disease  as 
bad  or  worse  than  before. 

In  addition  to  improving  the  organization  of  industry  we 
must,  if  we  wish  to  make  any  serious  progress,  increase  the 
efficiency  of  labor.  The  most  potent  instrument  for  this  pur- 
pose is  the  extended  use  of  machinery.  There  was  a  time  when 
the  working  classes  of  this  country  were  bitterly  opposed  to 
the  extension  of  machinery,  and  even  now  traces  of  the  old 
spirit  are  still  to  be  found;  but  on  the  whole  the  value  of 
machinery  to  the  wage  earner  is  now  so  fully  recognized  that  it 
is  hardly  worth  while  to  say  a  word  in  explanation  of  its  eco- 
nomic effect.  Not  only  does  the  machine  increase  the  earning 
power  of  each  individual  workman,  but  by  multiplying  commo- 
dities it  lowers  their  price  and  benefits  the  workman  in  his 
capacity  as  a  consumer  as  well  as  in  his  capacity  as  a  producer. 


232  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

Nation.    59:6.    July  5,  1894 
Real  Problem  of  the  Unemployed 

It  is  pleasant  to  note  that  the  general  nervousness  and 
vague  fear  of  last  winter  in  reference  to  the  unemployed  have 
now  so  largely  given  way  to  a  season  of  reflection  and  analysis. 
It  is  no  longer  enough  for  a  set  of  men  to  exhibit  themselves  as 
an  army  of  the  unemployed  to  inspire  sympathy  or  terror  in 
the  staid  citizen  and  to  make  him  feel  that  Congress  or  the 
state  or  city  government  should  "do  something."  The  time  has 
come  to  cross-examine  the  unemployed,  to  ask  them  how  they 
came  into  their  present  evil  estate,  what  work  they  ever  did, 
and  how  they  came  to  lose  their  jobs,  and  what  work  they  could 
or  would  do  now  if  it  were  offered  them.  Such  questioning 
is  the  surest  way  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  notion  that  there 'is 
anything  new  or  particularly  threatening  about  the  matter  as  it 
presents  itself  today,  but  that  it  is  simply  the  old  question  over 
again  of  what  society  is  to  do  with  the  incapable  and  unwilling 
who  cannot,  or  will  not,  earn  an  honest  living. 

We  recently  had  occasion  to  refer  to  several  interesting 
reports  from  American  municipalities  and  charity  organizations, 
which  help  to  a  cool  understanding  of  who  the  chronic  unem- 
ployed are  and  how  they  came  to  be  so,  and  now  we  find  strong 
corroboration  of  American  experience  in  an  article  published  in 
the  June  Charities  Review  on  "The  English  Municipalities  and 
the  Unemployed."  The  writer,  Mr.  Edward  Porritt,  gives  a 
running  account  of  the  reports  which  seventy-three  municipali- 
ties made  to  the  Local  Government  Board  in  regard  to  provid- 
ing work  for  the  unemployed  within  their  bounds.  The  experi- 
ment is  no  novelty  in  England.  Ever  since  the  labor  agitators 
"threw  a  scare"  into  the  politicians  of  both  parties  in  1885,  the 
demands  and  threats  of  the  unemployed  have  been  steadily  inten- 
sifying, and  the  Local  Government  Board  has  issued  a  circular 
ever  since  1886,  urging  vestries  to  give  work  to  idle  men.  This 
work  was  to  be  of  a  kind  which  would  not  "involve  the  stigma 
of  pauperism,"  which  "all  can  perform,"  which  "does  not  com- 
pete with  that  of  other  laborers,"  and  "which  is  not  likely  to 
interfere  with  the  resumption  of  regular  employment  in  their 
own  trades  by  those  who  seek  it." 

The  results  reported  by  the  seventy-three  municipal  authori- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  233 

ties  cannot  be  claimed  by  the  most  enthusiastic  advocate  of  state 
labor  as  furnishing  any  water  for  his  mill.  In  a  great  majority 
of  cases  the  work  was  unsatisfactorily  done  and  at  an  increased 
cost.  The  Hanover  Square  vestry  for  some  weeks  kept  forty 
men  at  work  repairing  roads.  The  surveyor  in  charge  reports 
that  "the  result  has  been  simply  to  benefit  the  men  employed 
at  an  increased  expenditure  of  £2,000  over  the  annual  esti- 
mates for  labor  and  material."  The  Hempstead  vestry  hired 
snow-sweepers,  and  they  were  reported  to  be  "idle,  incapable  of 
hard  work,  and  not  amenable  to  discipline."  Carpentering  work 
was  offered  by  the  Hackney  Board  of  Works,  but  the  "carpenters 
struck  the  first  day  for  trades  union  rate  of  wages."  Some  of 
the  suffering  unemployed  were  offered  work  at  Finchley  at  five 
pence  an  hour,  but  declined  it  on  the  ground  that  "their  ordinary 
wage  was  six  pence."  Mr.  Porritt  sums  up  by  showing  how  the 
class  of  men  described  in  the  Government  Board  circular,  who 
"honestly  dread  the  pauper  stigma,"  do  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  any  of  these  schemes  to  provide  work  by  municipalities. 
One  report  states  that  the  men  belonged  to  "the  class  of  per- 
manently unemployed";  which,  says  Mr.  Porritt,  "is  the  official 
and  English  way  of  stating  that  they  were  corner  men,  loafers." 
It  is  also  clear  from  the  English  experiments  that  the  popular 
use  of  the  term  "unskilled  labor"  is  very  inaccurate. 

According  to  the  reports  of  the  municipal  engineers,  sewering,  road- 
making,  the  grading  of  parks  and  gardens,  and  even  stone-breaking,  gravel- 
digging,  and  street-sweeping,  cannot  any  longer  be  classed  as  unskilled 
work.  Strength  and  endurance  are  needed  for  all  this  class  of  work,  and 
also*  some  degree  of  skill.  Yet  in  the  past  it  has  all  been  carelessly 
grouped  under  one  comprehensive  term  of  unskilled  labor,  and  pop- 
ularly regarded  as  work  upon  which  any  man  may  be  put  if  nothing 
better  or  more  suitable  is  offering  for  him. 

All  these  investigations  show  how  idle  it  is  to  imagine  that 
any  amount  of  work  offered  by  government  or  individuals 
would  solve  the  problem  of  the  permanently  unemployed.  Mr. 
Charles  Booth,  who  knows  more  about  the  London  unemployed 
than  any  man  living,  has  justly  s£ld:  "Lack  of  work  is  not 
really  the  disease ;  and  the  mere  provision  of  it  is,  therefore, 
useless  as  a  cure."  In  a  recent  address  the  Rev.  Canon  Barnett, 
warder  of  Toynbee  Hall,  that  home  of  Christian  socialism, 
made  the  following  statement:  "The  unemployed,  calmly  con- 
sidered, is  not  an  army  of  willing  workers;  but  is  rather  a 
body  largely  made  up  of  those  half  employed,  those  unfit  for 


234  SELECTED   ARTICLES   ON 

employment,  and  those  unwilling  to  be  employed."  It  is  clear 
that  the  real  problem,  therefore,  is  not  to  provide  work,  but  to 
make  men  competent  and  willing  to  work.  But  that  is  a  prob- 
lem as  old  as  civilization,  as  old  as  life  itself.  Nature's  remedy 
is  well  known.  Work  or  starve  is  the  sharp  dilemma  she 
offers.  Society's  solution  has  hitherto  been,  Support  yourself 
or  go  to  the  workhouse,  or  if  you  are  diseased  or  crippled, 
go  to  an  asylum.  The  new  system  of  coddling  is  no  improve- 
ment. It  makes  men  both  more  incompetent  and  more  unwill- 
ing to  work.  If  the  state  is  to  interfere  at  all  with  the 
operation  of  natural  law  in  this  matter,  it  should  be  in  the 
aim  to  raise  incompetence  into  fitness,  to  brand  unwillingness 
as  a  crime.  How  to  do  that  is  the  real  problem  of  the 
unemployed. 


Westminster  Review.    178:270-6.    September,  1912 

Employment  and  Unemployment:   the  Latest  Phase 
R.  C.  Davison 

It  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  modern  times  that  the  pub- 
lic mind  has  no  capacity  for  sustained  thought,  leading  to 
purposive  action  in  regard  to  the  more  intricate  problems  which 
face  it.  Yet,  as  Mr.  Wells  is  never  tired  of  pointing  out,  with- 
out close  and  continuous  public  attention  these  problems  are 
unlikely  ever  to  be  solved  in  any  way  that  will  give  perma- 
nent satisfaction  to  the  community.  To  give  a  crucial  instance, 
it  is  surely  a  most  ominous  thing  that  such  a  vital  issue  as 
Unemployment  should  have  slipped  from  the  public  mind  during 
the  last  two  years,  yet  Unemployment  is  a  disease  of  the  modern 
state  that  is  always  with  us.  In  1908  and  1909  the  disease 
became  so  virulent  and  so  threatening  to  the  social  fabric  that 
the  public  mind  dwelt  on  it  feverishly.  But  in  1911-1912,  al- 
though it  is  still  among  us,  a  temporary  mitigation  of  the  evil 
and  the  distractions  of  other  troubles  have  sufficed  almost  to 
exclude  it  from  press  and  platform. 

There  are  few,  alas!  who  are  inclined  to  see  any  funda- 
mental connection  between  the  hunger  marching  of  1909  and 
the  strike  fever  in  fifty  different  industries  to-day.  The  major- 
ity are  quite  content  to  deal  with  each  emergency  as  it  arises, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  235 

and  to  treat  each  effect  as  if  it  were  a  cause.  Yet  the  root 
trouble  of  each  is  the  same.  Our  modern  industrial  machine 
is  out  of  gear.  It  has  grown  too  unwieldy.  The  vast  structure 
has  been  built  up  piece  by  piece  with  efficiency,  perhaps,  with 
skill  certainly,  but  with  too  little  regard  to  human  nature,  in- 
dividual or  social. 

Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  at  a  most  modest  computation 
there  are  in  this  country  in  a  good  year  50,000  men  unemployed, 
involving  a  quarter  million  souls,  with  their  dependents,  and 
in  a  bad  year  200,000  men  unemployed,  involving  a  million  souls 
in  all.  In  practically  all  cases  of  distress,  which  seek  public 
or  private  aid,  Unemployment  is  a  factor  which  enters  in  either 
as  cause  or  effect  of  the  trouble.  Sometimes  the  want  of  work 
may  be  due  to  subjective  causes.  Many  a  man  finds  his  slen- 
der hold  on  the  labour  market  relaxes  with  old  age  or  sickness, 
or  when  a  single  weak  spot  in  his  moral  armour  is  laid  bare. 
But  the  vast  majority  fall  out  through  objective  economic 
causes,  which  they  are  powerless  to  check,  and  against  which 
they  have  no  redress.  Now,  good  economics  are  often  liable 
to  be  bad  ethics,  and  especially  bad  social  ethics.  Surely,  this 
is  a  case  in  point.  In  any  natural  state  of  life  the  one  inalien- 
able right  which  the  individual  possesses  was  the  right  to 
labour  in  order  to  live.  It  was  more  than  a  right,  it  was  a  com- 
mand, and  the  able-bodied  man  who,  in  such  a  state,  did  not 
work,  neither  tilled  the  soil  nor  hunted,  suffered  in  a  very  direct 
way:  he  starved.  But,  with  the  growth  of  societies  and  states, 
the  simple  becomes  complex,  and  human  institutions  begin  to 
veil  the  direct  operation  of  the  natural  law. 

As  regards  the  "Duty  to  labour,"  and  its  place  in  any  code 
of  social  ethics,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  social  institutions  have 
modified  the  simple  law  that  if  a  man  does  not  work,  neither 
shall  he  eat.  These  are  the  laws  of  inheritance,  and,  since  the 
i6th  century,  the  customs  of  lending  money  for  interest.  All 
these  practices  are  now  explicitly  allowed  in  modern  states  by 
the  laws  of  property,  and  in  other  ways  under  certain  social 
contracts.  What  has  never  been  clearly  stated  is  the  converse 
of  this  question:  not  whether  society  will  exempt  a  man  from 
the  duty  to  labour,  but  whether  a  society  will  guarantee  to  the 
individuals  who  compose  it  the  right  to  labour  if  they  desire  to 
do  so.  As  far  as  the  most  recent  developments  in  this  country 
can  be  trusted,  it  would  seem  to  be  denied  that  the  social  con- 


236  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

tract  can,  or  ought,  to  cover  such  a  right.  No  doubt  our 
growing  sense  of  social  solidarity  assents  to  the  claim  of  the 
right  to  live.  The  point  is  that  in  exercising  that  right  the 
individual  has  no  claim  to  a  place  in  the  ranks  of  industry  if 
his  services  can  possibly  be  dispensed  with.  It  is  true  that  the  pol- 
iticians calling  themselves  the  Labour  Party  have  espoused  a 
Right-to- Work  Bill,  but  that  high-sounding  measure  has  been  just- 
ly discredited,  since  its  proposals  consisted  in  nothing  more 
original  than  a  wide  extension  of  Relief  Works  and  Distress  Com- 
mittees, similar  to  those  set  up  by  that  universally  condemned 
Act,  the  Unemployed  Workmen's  Act  (1905).  But  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  right  to  work  does  not  stand  or  fall  by  this  for- 
lorn bantling  of  the  Labour  Party.  It  is  in  itself  only  a  faint 
echo  of  the  nobler  schemes  of  Louis  Blanc  and  Robert  Owen, 
who,  despairing  of  social  welfare  under  competitive  industry, 
demanded,  the  first,  state  workshops,  and  the  second,  industrial 
villages  of  co-operators.  Both  would  have  ensured  to  all  the 
right  to  work  in  order  to  live.  To  the  modern  thinkers,  how- 
ever, it  is  becoming  clear  that  such  a  state  guarantee  would 
recommend  itself  but  little  to  the  community  were  it  put  into 
effect.  The  state  authority  would  need  to  decide  to  what  trade 
a  man  should  be  allocated,  and  it  would  have  to  undertake  his 
training  and  preparation  for  such  a  trade.  Free  choice  could 
no  longer  be  given  to  the  individual  lest  certain  services  should 
be  overcrowded  while  others  equally  necessary  should  be 
neglected.  Naturally,  this  could  never  be  done  without  com- 
plete state  control  of  all  the  main  industries  of  the  country, 
while  such  an  economy  of  life  and  labour  would  necessarily 
entail  something  very  like  forced  labour  for  those  on  whom 
the  nation's  industry  depended. 

In  general,  our  attitude  to-day  is  somewhat  characteristic 
of  the  British  mind  in  that  it  largely  admits  the  obligation  of 
society  towards  the  potential  workman,  but  emphasises  at  the 
same  time  the  insuperable  difficulties  of  acting  up  to  that  obli- 
gation. Principles  with  us  are  dangerous  things,  which  must 
never  be  allowed  to  obtain  complete  dominion  over  us.  Of 
course,  we  have  always  given  the  partial  recognition  of  the 
right  to  live  through  our  system  of  Poor  Laws,  but  there  the 
deterrent  conditions  have  largely  confused  the  issue  between 
economic  Unemployment  and  moral  delinquency.  Various  other 
expedients  have  been  tried  during  the  last  half-century;  state 


UNEMPLOYMENT  237 

assisted  emigration  has  developed,  and  labour  colonies  have 
been  set  up.  These  can  be  acclaimed  as  our  successes,  so  far 
as  they  go,  but  that  is  not  far.  Their  remedial  effect  has  never 
seriously  been  felt  in  the  vast  industrial  organism  of  the  coun- 
try. It  is  in  the  institution  of  State  Relief  Works  that  our 
main  efforts  have  hitherto  been  made,  and  here  we  have  to 
confess  to  failure.  Indeed,  our  failure  would  probably  have 
been  less  conspicuous  had  the  same  sums  of  money  been  dis- 
tributed unconditionally  among  the  unemployed  and  their  fam- 
ilies. As  it  is,  we  have  assisted  those  whom  we  ought  not  to  have 
assisted,  and  those  whom  we  ought  have  stayed  away.  We  have 
not  thereby  diminished  Unemployment,  nor  decasualised  the  un- 
der-employed. We  have  tried  to  make  work  for  all  without  recog- 
nising that  it  is  not  so  much  "work"  as  a  thousand  different  kinds 
of  work  that  are  wanted  by  the  unemployed.  The  most  that  can  be 
said  of  these  economically  and  humanly  wasteful  experiments 
is  that  they  have  been  instructive  to  us.  Mr.  Beveridge's 
book,  "Unemployment:  A  Problem  of  Industry,"  showed  finally 
that  the  state  provision  of  unnecessary  work  was  an  aggrava- 
tion rather  than  a  remedy  for  our  troubles,  and  it  is  that  book 
which  conveniently  marks  the  turning  point  in  expert  thought 
on  this  subject,  for  it  is  since  its  publication  that  the  whole 
problem  has  been  approached  along  a  new  road — the  road  of 
preventive  organisation. 

The  last  three  years  have  advanced  us  astonishingly  far  along 
that  road.  First  came  the  Labour  Exchanges,  which  served  to 
prepare  the  ground,  and  to  lay  the  basic  foundations  of  the 
vast  scheme.  Being  optional  for  masters  and  men  they  raised 
but  little  dust  of  opposition.  Two  hundred  of  these  Exchanges 
have  been  set  up,  and  in  three  years  they  have  secured  a  con- 
siderable hold  on  the  industry  of  the  country  even  without 
their  natural  concomitant  of  compulsion. 

The  second,  though  not  necessarily  the  last,  instalment  of 
the  scheme,  is  now  before  us  under  the  name  of  Unemploy- 
ment Insurance.  Sheltered  under  the  bulk  and  title  of  Mr. 
Lloyd  George's  measure — with  which,  by  the  way,  it  has  no  sort 
of  relation — this  far-reaching  scheme  has  been  carried  through. 
In  it  are  enshrined  new  principles  which  are  capable  of  effect- 
ing nothing  less  than  a  revolution  in  our  industrial  system, 
and  yet  it  is  curious  to  note  that  never  was  a  measure  less  the 
outcome  of  public  agitation  and  demand.  It  springs  from  the 


238  SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 

minds  of  experts  with  a  gift  of  scientific  organisation,  and  with 
the  ability  to  apply  their  theory  to  the  chaotic  practices  of  mod- 
ern industry. 

In  the  first  place,  one  may  almost  say  that  the  scheme  is 
less  concerned  with  insurance  against  Unemployment  and  the 
troubles  of  the  unemployed  man,  than  it  is  with  the  better  or- 
ganisation of  the  labour  market.  The  latter  is  its  primary  aim, 
the  former  only  a  powerful  means.  In  a  short  time  the  Labour 
Exchanges,  greatly  increased  in  number  and  status,  will  be 
utilised  to  some  extent  by  almost  every  man  and  every  employer 
in  the  five  industries  selected  for  the  commencement  of  the 
scheme.  In  effect  "compulsory"  Labour  Exchanges,  strongly 
deprecated  in  1908,  are  now  to  become  almost  an  accomplished 
fact  in  certain  trades — all  without  serious  opposition  and  with- 
out the  bandying  about  of  that  odious  term,  "state  compul- 
sion." The  day  is  not  distant  when  there  will  be  one,  and 
only  one  method  of  taking  on  labour,  and  that  will  be  through 
a  state  institution  provided  for  the  purpose,  just  as  the  Postal 
Service  was  provided  for  its  purpose.  By  this  means,  the 
state  possesses  itself  of  a  new  weapon  by  which  it  can,  if  it 
wishes,  regulate  an  industry  in  almost  every  conceivable  aspect 
of  its  operations.  Primarily,  no  doubt,  it  will  use  it  to  secure 
regular  employment  for  the  working  class  who  are  concerned. 
All  that  makes  for  the  uneconomic  use  of  human  labour  is  to  be 
attacked,  and  especially  irregularity  of  work  and  under-em- 
ployment. 

This  is  one  line  of  attack,  but  it  is  reinforced  by  another  no 
less  powerful,  namely,  the  employer's  contribution.  Under  nor- 
mal circumstances  the  employer  of  an  insured  man  will  every 
week  be  compelled  to  pay  2l/2d.  in  respect  of  him.  This  pay- 
ment is  not  conditional,  procures  no  direct  benefit  to  the  em- 
ployer, and  is  in  no  way  credited  to  him  for  future  claims; 
it  is  a  liability  automatically  incurred  by  the  act  of  employment 
itself,  and,  above  all,  it  is  a  weapon  of  the  utmost  potentialities 
in  the  hands  of  the  state.  Already,  in  the  Act,  it  is  turned 
to  account  to  persuade  or  compel  the  employer  to  do  a  num- 
ber of  things  which  he  otherwise  would  not  do.  From  now 
onwards  there  will  be  substantial  refunds  to  the  master  who 
guarantees  twelve  months  work  to  his  men,  or  who  puts  them 
on  short  time  instead  of  reducing  his  staff.  In  the  future  this 


UNEMPLOYMENT  239 

power  will  most  assuredly  be  developed.  The  question  imme- 
diately arises,  why  should  the  employer  be  subjected  to  this  tax  or 
contribution,  especially  as  he  is  to  have  no  control  over  the  bene- 
fits or  the  management  of  the  Unemployment  Fund?  If  the  pre- 
vention of  Unemployment  were  the  real  aim,  why  not  tax  him  when 
he  deprives  men  of  work  rather  than  when  he  supplies  them  with 
the  means  of  earning  a  livelihood.  The  employer  may  be  re- 
sponsible for  much  irregularity  of  work,  but  that  is  no  reason 
why  he  should  be  penalised  for  the  act  of  employment.  Hither- 
to we  have  only  ventured  here  and  there  to  tax  the  employment 
of  unproductive  labour,  of  luxury.  Now  we  are  deliberately 
setting  out  to  penalise  the  employment  of  highly  productive 
labour,  such  as  carpentry  and  shipbuilding.  Hitherto,  the  gen- 
eral idea  has  surely  been  that  such  productive  occupations  are 
good  things  in  themselves,  and  the  more  men  they  employ  the 
better.  But  now  a  new  idea  is  dawning  on  the  horizon  of  in- 
dustry, which  almost  appears  in  the  light  of  a  paradox — at  least, 
to  the  more  conservative  among  us.  We  are  discovering  the 
elementary  fact  that  it  is  not  the  employment  or  the  act  of 
labour  which  is  good,  but  only  the  product.  Must  we,  therefore, 
discourage  masters  from  employing  workpeople?  "Yes,"  an- 
swers the  expert  boldly,  "so  long  as  a  single  superfluous  human 
being  is  engaged  in  the  industry."  Employers  in  the  past  have 
been  reproached  for  their  selfishness  and  inhumanity  in  dis- 
charging workmen.  From  this  and  from  other  causes  it  is  only 
natural  that  they  should  have  regarded  themselves  as  bene- 
factors in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  labour  they  employed. 
Thus,  in  spite  of  the  rigid  economics  of  modern  industry  there 
are,  undoubtedly,  many  thousands  of  workpeople  whose  services 
could  be  spared  without  any  curtailing  of  product  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  Even  in  the  2Oth  century  sentiment  and  inefficiency 
exist  in  the  work-a-day  world,  and  are  often  reinforced  by 
what  has  hitherto  been  the  code  of  morality.  To-day,  how- 
ever, a  new  code  of  morals  is  being  set  up  with  state  sanction 
behind  it.  The  employer  is  to  be  bluntly  told  that  he  is  not 
a  benefactor,  but  a  beneficiary,  and  as  such  he  must  pay  for 
his  privileges.  Truly,  a  small  charge  of  2^d.  per  week  may  not 
be  sufficient  to  bring  about  a  revolution,  although  it  will  go 
far;  it  is  the  newly  recognised  principle  that  will  have  such 
potent  effects,  and  the  new  attitude  of  the  state  institutions  in 


240  SELECTED  ARTICLES   ON 

regard  to  these  problems.  The  state  might  easily  have  gone 
to  work  in  another  way,  if  its  sole  aim  had  been  the  provision 
of  money  for  insurance  purposes.  It  might  legitimately  have 
taxed  the  whole  community  for  a  larger  share  of  the  cost,  or 
it  might  have  levied  a  charge  on  the  employer  in  proportion 
as  he  found  it  necessary  to  discharge  workpeople.  This  would 
have  been  an  encouragement  to  him  to  keep  on  more  men  than 
his  business  strictly  required— an  encouragement  which  would 
have  added  pecuniary  interest  to  the  common  humanity  of 
the  employer.  But  the  new  scheme  deliberately  sets  out  to 
shatter  these  lingering  delusions  of  the  last  century  for  which  we 
have  no  further  use.  Why  should  the  state,  in  effect,  bribe 
the  employer  to  burden  his  industry  with  more  labour  than  is 
actually  necessary?  The  organisation  of  regular  and  efficient 
production  is  his  work  in  life,  and  it  is  work  which  is  vital 
to  the  well-being  of  society,  but  it  is  promoted  by  the  most 
economical  rather  than  the  most  prodigal  employment  of  human 
labour.  In  the  past  the  employer  has  often  complained  to  the 
social  reformer  that  he  is  a  business  man,  and  that  the  state 
has  no  right  to  ask  him  to  play  the  grandmother  to  the  work- 
ing classes.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  he  was  quite  the  eco- 
nomic business  machine  which  he  thought  himself.  He  had  his 
own  inefficiencies,  prejudices,  irregularities,  which  not  only 
harmed  society,  but  diminished  his  profits,  and  he  allowed  the 
most  wasteful  fluctuations  of  trade  to  sweep  over  the  indus- 
trial world  to  his  own  and  the  community's  detriment.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  the  state  in  its  changed  attitude  has  decided 
to  take  the  employer  at  his  word,  and  its  first  act  is  to  point 
out  to  him  that  he  confers  no  sort  of  benefit  on  the  working 
classes  by  providing  them  with  employment.  Indeed,  if  there 
is  any  question  of  benefit  conferred  it  is  the  other  way  round. 
What  are  the  modern  conditions  of  work  in  a  coal  mine, 
on  a  pot  bank,  or  for  that  matter  on  a  building  scaffold  or  in 
a  shipyard  that  makes  the  lot  of  the  labourer  such  an  enviable 
one?  Mediaeval  conditions  of  industry  may  have  been  another 
matter,  but  the  days  of  the  artist  craftsman  and  of  the  un- 
specialised  artisan  are  no  longer.  It  is  the  product,  not  the 
labour,  that  is  good,  and  the  possibility  that  our  industries,  if 
they  were  thoroughly  economical  of  human  labour,  might  not 
employ  all  the  working  classes  of  the  country  is  no  business 


UNEMPLOYMENT  241 

of  the  manufacturer  so  long  as  he  turns  out  his  maximum 
product.  Let  him  play  his  own  part  well,  and  then  we  shall 
find  it  easier  to  deal  with  the  problems  of  distribution  and  main- 
tenance if  and  when  they  arise.  Should  the  regularising  and 
minimising  of  the  employers'  demand  for  labour  lead  to  the 
complete  worklessness  of  a  larger  body  of  people  than  we  have 
hitherto  known,  that  will  be  a  problem  which  the  community 
must  solve  separately. 

But  first  things  must  be  taken  first,  and  for  the  present  our 
goal  is  clear  to  view.  We  are  steadily  aiming  at  the  maxi- 
mum security  of  employment  for  those  whom  industry  needs, 
together  with  a  minimum  condition  of  life  and  wage  below 
which  no  capable  worker  shall  be  compelled  to  fall.  If  and 
when  the  surplus  of  labour  round  each  or  all  trades  is  at  length 
clearly  defined,  it  must  then  be  dealt  with.  It  may  be  that  we 
shall  try  to  check  over-population  by  controlling  the  birth-rate. 
What  is  more  certain  is  that  we  shall  develop  to  an  undreamt 
of  degree  the  highest  mobility  of  labour.  Already,  we  have 
been  reminded  by  Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson  that,  as  capital  becomes 
more  and  more  cosmopolitan,  drifting  to  other  lands  where  there 
are  still  unworked  resources,  so  labour  must  follow  in  its  wake. 
In  a  small  way  even  now  we  can  see  the  state  bringing  pres- 
sure to  bear  for  this  end.  Is  there  not  a  clause  in  the  Unem- 
ployment Insurance  Act,  which,  under  certain  conditions,  deprives 
a  workman  of  unemployed  benefit  unless  he  is  willing  to  re- 
spond to  a  call  for  his  services  in  a  distant  district?  Side 
by  side  with  this  we  shall  most  assuredly  have  to  shorten  the 
length  of  the  working  day,  legally  or  otherwise.  Already,  the 
principle  is  established  of  rewarding  the  employer  who  puts 
his  men  on  short  time  as  a  method  of  regularising  his  employ- 
ment. In  any  of  these  cases  the  first  requirement  is  definition, 
definition  of  the  essential  from  the  inessential,  definition  of  the 
real  amount  of  human  energy  that  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  maximum  productivity  of  industry.  It  must  not  be  implied, 
however,  that  the  proposal  of  the  modern  expert  is  barren  of 
ideals,  or  devoted  to  the  machinery  of  organisation  for  its  own 
sake.  He  can  justly  say  that  he  is  taking  the  first  of,  per- 
haps, many  future  steps  to  reduce  the  intolerable  burden  of 
labour,  both  in  extensity  and  intensity,  that  he  aims  at  setting 
men  free  during  an  ever  increasing  portion  of  their  time  for 


242  UNEMPLOYMENT 

the  pursuit  of  other,  and  we  will  hope,  of  higher  ends  in  life. 
He  may  even  find  himself  approaching  by  another  gate  the 
same  Utopian  city  which  is  ever  being  sought  by  the  visionary 
socialist  who  foretells  the  day  when  we  shall  have,  not  an 
eight,  but  a  four  hours  working  day,  and  a  proletariat  which 
will  devote  its  leisure  to  reading  the  poets  and  painting  sun- 
sets. The  shortening  of  the  hours  of  labour  has  ever  been 
a  central  feature  of  the  Trade  Union  propositions,  and  it  is  quite 
on  the  cards  that  a  few  months  will  find  us  in  the  throes  of  a 
national  demand  for  an  eight  hours  day  in  several  staple  trades. 


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OCT  14   1932 


MfDT 


MAY    6     1946 


REC'D  LD 

JUL  1  5  1961 


LD  lJl-50w-8, -32 


VB   19219 


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